The B Team Takes The Field

Walt is busy getting the first edition of the electronic show daily for the 32nd Annual Honeywell User Group meeting off the ground, so while he's not looking, I'm talking over SoundOff! Being a member of the press has it's advantages. Sometimes you get free food and drink and sneak previews into what the big dogs in the space you're covering are up to. At noon today, we ink-stained wretches were ushered into the Demo center for a first look at Honeywell's new OneWireless sstem. I'll let Walt give you the serious breakdown on this because his technical insights are far more profound than mine. The short version is that Honeywell's universal industrial wireless mesh network solution is now available for purchase. The network supports multiple industrial protocols and applications simultaneously and provides a single wireless network across the plant. The system has been beta-tested at multiple sites, including Nucor Steel Tuscaloosa Inc. in Alabama where it has been configured with wireless temperature and pressure sensors to improve the efficiency of several steel-manufacturing processes. I think the takeaway here is that a successful installation in a steel mill should go a long way to putting paid the notion that wireless networks are too fragile and finicky to work in extreme industrial environments. For more on this solution, visit www.honeywell.com/ps/wireless. After a nice lunch (Honeywell knows Rule 1 of Managing Journalists: Feed 'em first.), we were given a nice dessert--the announcement that Honeywell is launching a new line of flow meters. The VersaFlow line of elctromagnetic, Coriolis, ultrasonic and vortex flow meters will be manufactured by Krohne www.krohne.co,and sold under Honeywell's name.