One step at a time: Steve Eisenbrown, senior vice president of Rockwell Automation's automation, control and information group, talked to Paul Carslake about the new technology on the horizon. (Interview).

Engineer, The, January, 2002 by Paul Carslake

Can automation users expect any big technological step-change coming up that will lead to rapid gains in productivity at a stroke? Not really, according to Steve Eisenbrown, vice president in charge of the automation, control and information group at Rockwell.

"I don't think our industry has ever provided a step change," he said, talking to IMS at Rockwell's annual Automation Fair in Atlanta.

"First of all, a lot of our customers wouldn't accept that. From my experience, when some of our competitors have tried that, they have lost market share because they have lost the support of the customer.

We have always tried to provide a migration path over from architecture to architecture. This means making some trade-offs along the way over the rate of...