Now for a break from negativity. I know that’s an effort that seems daunting this month as the U.S. is shoulder deep in campaign muck. However, the election will soon be decided and half of the people will celebrate and the other half will lament their futures, even if unnecessarily so. But there will still be problems to solve, and a unified effort to find solutions is needed.
I’m talking about issues near and dear to us all in process control, including energy transition, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics.
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I recently covered the Honeywell Users Group (HUG) in Dallas and was struck by the optimism of executives, such as Lucian Boldea, president and CEO of Honeywell Industrial Automation, who said we live in a great time because the tools we need are right in front of us. Indeed, despite the gloom you’ll find when “doom scrolling” on social media these days, we live in a time where technology gives us more than a puncher’s chance to solve some really tough problems, such as oil and gas emissions and threats to our industrial operations from nefarious actors.
"Partnerships between technology companies and operators go a long way to ratcheting up the movement toward gainful solutions."
These issues won’t be solved by half the industry. We must work together. Partnerships between technology companies and operators go a long way to ratcheting up the movement toward gainful solutions. Take energy, for example. Upgrading energy infrastructure (i.e., the grid) is vital to securing electricity reliability and curbing emissions. But utilities and technology need each other to ultimately make meaningful progress.
Boldea reiterated that point at HUG. “We can’t achieve the energy transition and emission targets on our own. We need to do it together,” he pointed out.
Meanwhile, Girash Saligram, CEO of Weatherford International, appeared in a video to tell the crowd at HUG how his company, one of the largest upstream oil and gas companies in the world, works with Honeywell to shore up its emission reduction efforts.
While daunting, these tough tasks, some even existential in nature, can be solved. It just takes a coordinated effort of two conflicting sides. I wonder how that will play out once we’ve picked a new U.S. president and congress?
We'll soon find out.
