If you're a subscriber to Control Design or registered visitor to ControlDesign.com, and you're a machine builder or system integrator, you should have received my email invitation to participate in our study about how you do automation product research these days.As responses begin to come in--for which I thank you--one of the questions I'm interested to see responses about is how your research methods and habits have or haven't changed because of web-based options. We asked which of these is your most used, second most used, and least-used method to do product research:
Meet/Speak with local distributors
Meet/Speak directly with your automation supplier's technical engineers/product managers
Visit suppliers at trade shows
Attend supplier(s) user group conference/event
Search independent, non-vendor websites, i.e, automation communities, magazine web sites
Search the suppliers web sites
Read trade magazines
Weigh in here, or better yet, click here to participate in the study.
