your letters: Readers Respond

At the recent World Economic Forum, Harvard University President Larry Summers said, "The integration of four-fifths of the world where people are poor with the one-fifth of the world where people are rich has the potential to be one of the three most important economic events in the last millennium, alongside the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution."

Outsourcing/Offshoring/Offsourcing is a mega trend integrating all economies and jobs globally. China as the world's factory for manufacturing and India as the world's back-office for services are necessities for organizations seeking maximum business value in global competitive markets.

What career and business strategies would work? In addition to the excellent ones mentioned in the "The Upside of Outsourcing" (March InTech), some more are:

First, being global is not a choice, but a strategic imperative.

A Virtual 24 Hour Factory or Overseas Office cuts development times and costs drastically. Its economic implications are too attractive to ignore in spite of cultural and distance related working challenges.

Second, even though it is a flat world as coined by Thomas Friedman, in reality, it is not flat. It is a world of High Quality Mountains and Peaks and Low Quality Valleys and Pits. Wherever one is located globally, whether Boston, Bangalore, Botswana, or Beijing, one has to be focused on qualitative work, or else risk getting banished into oblivion.

Third, there are great opportunities in adapting U.S. products for emerging economies like India. Its large billion plus population, along with high economic growth rates, is a huge magnet for value priced appropriate technology products and services.

U.S. brands also have a natural edge and affinity in India.

Mahesh Khatri

Kaytek, Mumbai, India

Hub, spokes of a wheel

The "Ask the Career Coach" article on micromanaging (February InTech) was well written and brings to light a very real problem in our industry (and no doubt, others).

In a typical hierarchal layout of roles, we tend to always show our "leaders" in a nice little box on top, with all the "workers" in sub-categorized boxes some where below the leaders. This seemingly harmless organizational layout actually attaches a stigma of dominance (so to speak) between the leader and the workers. If we shift our concept of how a business is run and remove this stigma of hierarchy, we come up with a better notion for organizational layout.

First, we can show our leaders in the center (like the hub of a wheel) and call them organizers instead of leaders. Next, we add the typical worker as an extension of this hub (spoke on the wheel) and call them something a little more fitting, like an "initiator." This concept empowers the initiator to not only to start the work but also to finish it and feel responsible for the entire scope of the task.

Our typical leader, now classed as an organizer, is solely responsible for "keeping the wheel turning without falling off track," just as a hub should do. Their task is to assist the initiators with the organizational aspects of the task at hand and that is it.

Nobody leads, nobody follows, all are equal; each simply has a different role in the progress of the company.

To further this wheel concept, extra wheels (departments) can be added; the wheels are attached via an "axle" so organizers are interdependent of each other. The axle (basically a corridor of communication) keeps all the wheels turning in unison.

As in a real life vehicle, the more wheels we add, the more easily we move over rough ground. It is a simple concept/analogy that doesn't change much, other than our perception of how an organization is laid out.

If people feel they're in control, they usually are.

Brent Toniolo,

senior controls developer,

AZ Automotive Corp.

Process control basics

After reading "Steady Upstream for Loose Control" (March InTech Flow/Level), it appears many of us have to go back to reviewing the basics of process control. Level is an integrating variable. Using Proportional and Integral (reset) action to control level is doomed to failure. Integral action will force the control valve fully open or fully closed if the level is not equal to the setpoint. The way to control level is with a Proportional Band Only Controller or a Proportional Band Only Algorithm. The proportional band should be set at the allowable maximum offset, in this case 4 ft above and below the setpoint. This would allow the tank level to float within the 8-ft range.

Using a Pl Algorithm with a long integral time only makes the situation worse. How many remember when analog controllers with anti-reset windup first appeared? It was hailed as the equivalent of sliced bread. It was soon discovered it was not a cure if the basics were ignored.

The authors describe how they switched from automatic to manual without upsetting the process. Surprise, analog controllers had bumpless transfer as far back as the 1960s when I first started in this game.

Using the latest and greatest devices, in this case a PLC, will not be a panacea if the basics of control theory are ignored. Strap a PLC to an elephant's back and see if it will fly. Reprogram the PLC, and it still can't fly.