keynoter: Find your 'center of competency.'.

This article deals with the significance of Centers of Competency. Manufacturers can achieve significant cost savings and productivity gains by creating Centers of Competency to identify opportunities, then working with technical managers and engineers to implement them, DuPont's director John Sieg of corporate operations advised the Instrumentation Systems and Automation Society (ISA) EXPO 2004 attendees during his keynote address. At DuPont, as a result of Centers of Competency, the company seen a $16 million in savings from 50 improvement projects in 2004, said Sieg. Challenging other manufacturers to consider creating their own Centers of Competency, Sieg explained how those at DuPont work. Team members learn best practices from societies such as ISA. They conduct a self-assessment effort requiring that they first agree on the current state of a process and automation system. After that, the team interviews managers and engineers, then brainstorms how to improve automation and process control systems. A continually challenging area psychologically, however, he cautioned, is continuing improvement over time after the initial excitement of a major achievement wears off. Rather than pushing for installation of major new systems, the team is encouraged to opt for incremental new functionality.