Frank Riordan, Author at DMC, Inc.

The 30 Best Business Decisions We’ve Made Over the Years

Frank Riordan — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:46:09 +0000

Thirty years ago, I started DMC as a proudly self-described schmuck with a laptop. I didn’t have much of a plan, just a simple vision: create a company I’d like to work for even if I didn’t own it.

Three decades later, I can easily say we more than accomplished that goal. People sometimes ask about the secret to our success, or our “special sauce.” My view is that there usually isn’t a secret; success comes from executing the basics consistently. And as far as special sauce goes, everyone knows it’s Thousand Island dressing.

As I did five years ago, I’m going to share a list of valuable lessons, this time with some of the best decisions we’ve made. Some may not fit your circumstances, or even ours today, and sequence matters: cherry-picking one or two ideas may not work the same way it worked for us.

Alright, enough yakety-yak; here are some of the choices that helped us become a great company.

1. Making ‘Hiring Smart People’ Our #1 Core Value

DMC’s core values are really more operational than they are aspirational, and if you don’t believe me, take a look at their order because it’s intentional. There’s a reason “Hire Smart People” is number one on our list: because hiring smart people influences safety, customer satisfaction, telling it like it is, etc. Everything cascades from getting the right people on board.

2. One DMC

As DMC grew beyond a single office, we made a deliberate decision not to treat each location as its own profit center. Instead, we adopted a “One DMC” philosophy where all offices succeed or fail together. This may sound simple, but it has had a profound impact on our culture and operations.

3. Best First Day (BFD)

Everyone thinks they know the meaning of BFD until they join DMC. We realized early on the importance of setting the tone from the first moment someone walks through the door on their first day.

4. Creating the Career Development and Improvement Program (CDIP)

CDIP is really the brainchild of Kristie Shea and other members of the leadership team. We recognized there isn’t truly one clear path to career advancement; it’s more of a lattice.

5. Expanding Our Service Offerings

Over the years, we have continually expanded our capabilities, both by adding entirely new service areas and by broadening the offerings within those areas. Test & Measurement was our first major addition beyond our original controls focus, but the larger lesson was that growth opportunities often existed right in front of us.

6. Deciding to Expand Geographically

Back in 2012, when we decided to open our first regional office, the vision was that we could better serve local-ish clients, expand our ability to recruit and retain talent, and give emerging leaders more opportunities to grow.

7. Making Employee Feedback Count

When we created our annual “How’s It Going?” survey, we wanted to do more than collect feedback and file it away. We decided we also wanted to act on what we learned. Every year, employees provide feedback on everything from leadership and career development to project staffing, benefits, culture, and day-to-day work experience, and the feedback has been more than just eye-opening; it’s been motivating.

8. Focusing on Customer Service

There are a lot of smart engineers in the world, but we quickly realized that technical competence alone wouldn’t differentiate us. We made a deliberate choice to obsess over customer service: responding quickly, communicating clearly, managing expectations, building relationships, and doing what we could to exceed expectations.

9. Activity Funds

Everyone must be invited. You must take pictures. And it must be legal. These are the only firm rules behind planning Activity Funds. Every office is budgeted each month to do an activity together as a group, and the more creative the activity, the better.

10. Creating a Culture of Transparency

I’ve never liked being told “because” when asking a reasonable question, because I’ve always believed that when people don’t have information, they fill in the blanks themselves, often with assumptions that are worse than reality. That’s why we make a concerted effort to put transparency at the heart of our company culture.

11. Structured Employee Recognition

People do great work every day, but in a growing company it’s easy for those contributions to go unnoticed. Rather than hoping recognition would happen organically, we built systems to encourage it.

12. Establishing LIFT (Leadership Improvement Forged Together)

LIFT, or its full name, Leadership Improvement Forged Together, is a leadership development program that was yet another great initiative led by Kristie Shea. Anyone interested can sign up for LIFT, and they join a cohort of others learning leadership skills.

13. Growing Our Office Space in Chicago

If you put a plant in too small a pot, it won’t grow. After about seven years in our office on Kingsbury, we knew it was time to move on. Our next office location needed to be larger in scale to support where we were going as a company.

14. Creating Work Environments People Love

This notion of creating office spaces that people love actually started when we moved to our current headquarters on Elston. We wrote down a wish list of all of the things that we would love to have in our new office, and we hit most of them.

15. Embracing a Hybrid Work Environment

Like many companies at the time, pre-COVID we used to be in-office five days a week. But in working from home throughout the pandemic, we realized, hey, this works; people can be productive at home.

16. Expanding Benefits That Support Well-Being

The story behind our benefits really is no mystery. What’s the right thing to do for people working marathon hours? Our benefits make it possible for hardworking people to do a hard job.

17. Establishing Yearly Office Events (YOEs)

YOEs actually grew out of an Activity Fund “misuse,” when we held our first DMSki event in 2010. At the time, I was metaphorically biting my tongue. A ski event wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned when we first implemented the Activity Fund.

18. Building Strong Performance Metrics and KPIs

Our performance and KPI metrics are really built into a unique feedback system we created to keep everyone on the same page and focused on what’s important. Building strong individual performance metrics has given us a very fast, weekly feedback loop of how we’re doing as a company and how individuals are doing, too.

19. Creating Dynamic, Real-Time Dashboards

Early on, we made an explicit decision to create dynamic, real-time dashboards that would make it possible for us to keep a close eye on things like company performance, KPIs, sales performance, and so forth. It also allows anyone, at any time, to take the metaphorical “pulse” of the company and understand what’s happening.

20. Growing from the Ground Up with College Recruiting

Hiring the smartest people starts in seemingly the most obvious place: college campuses. We’ve put a considerable amount of thought into our college recruiting strategy, hiring the next generation of engineers. Setting up our best people at campus career fairs every fall gives a direct line to some of the brightest engineering students in the country.

21. Choosing to Grow Organically

This is a decision that is regularly up for review, but having built a unique culture and very high hiring standards has led us to grow without acquisitions. Though buying other firms might accelerate our growth and entry into new markets, we’ve so far resisted the path that many firms our size follow, and I think it has paid off longer term for us.

22. Opening Our Manufacturing Center

For the longest time, we believed that focusing on our engineering services was best for our customers and for our business—thinking that manufacturers were better at the production side of things than we could be and that partnering with those firms would be most efficient.

23. Having a Content-Driven Web Strategy

Stating the obvious, the web has been transformative in how people find information and research companies. An entire industry has been created around search engine optimization and search engine marketing.

24. Getting CSIA Certified

One of DMC’s most important decisions was pursuing certification through the Control System Integrators Association (CSIA). CSIA is the leading professional organization for control system integrators and has developed a comprehensive set of best practices covering everything from project management and engineering quality to financial management, cybersecurity, and customer service.

25. Offsite Leadership Meetings

Our offsite management meetings started as a small group gathering in a Chicago hotel conference room, but we found they were so valuable, we eventually evolved them into multi-day retreats and, later, leadership summits involving nearly 50 leaders from across the company.

26. Budgeting by Not Budgeting

Conventional wisdom says that every department should have an annual budget. I’ve never been a big fan of that approach. Too often, budgets create incentives to spend money simply because it’s available. As the end of the year approaches, people start looking for ways to use up their remaining budget so they don’t lose it the following year. That behavior may be rational within the system, but it’s not good for the business.

27. Building Our Own Systems

There are many advantages to hiring the smartest people. One of those advantages happens to be that if you need a tool or system capable of doing something very specific, you just need to build it.

28. All-Day Company Meetings (ADCMs)

One example of a decision that made a lot of sense at one point, but became less effective as we grew, was our All-Day Company Meetings (ADCMs). When DMC was a much smaller company, ADCMs were a dedicated day each year when everyone stepped away from project work to learn, share knowledge, and spend time together as a team. The specific activities varied by office, but the goal was always the same: strengthen connections and reinforce our culture outside of the day-to-day work environment.

29. Employee-Led Recruiting

The people who know DMC best are the people who work here every day. That’s why we decided to treat recruiting as everyone’s responsibility, not just HR’s. Our employees are the ones who can speak honestly about the projects, the culture, and what it takes to be successful.

30. Building Connections One Meal at a Time

We’ve always brought people together at the table—not the boardroom table, the lunchroom table. When we were a much smaller team, we would all go to lunch together, 12 or 15 people at a time, and then we’d run back to the office like we were teenagers.

Taken individually, each milestone in this list tells a small part of our story. Together, they reveal how we prioritized our people, embraced growth, and served our clients over 30 years. While we can’t predict exactly what the next 30 years will bring, we know the same mindset that fueled these milestones, curiosity, continuous improvement, and a commitment to doing the right thing, will undoubtedly help us reach the next 30 milestones.

Celebrating 30 years of what makes DMC, DMC. Want to learn more?

Learn what it’s like to build a career at DMC, discover our employee-driven approach to growth, and view current opportunities to help shape our next chapter.

The post The 30 Best Business Decisions We’ve Made Over the Years appeared first on DMC, Inc..

Frank’s Top 25 Business Lessons for DMC’s 25th Anniversary

Frank Riordan — Thu, 24 Jun 2021 11:01:46 +0000

Going back a quarter-century, it’s hard to say for certain what I was thinking when I started DMC. I can selectively choose pieces of our background to illustrate how we got where we are today, but going back to the roots, I don’t think there was anything all that sophisticated. One principle that I’ve had since starting DMC is that I wanted to create a company I would want to work for even if I didn’t own it.

I’m not exaggerating to say I’ve been working since I was no older than ten. From being a gopher on construction sites with my dad, to delivering newspapers, to cutting grass, I’ve been doing something for over 40 years. I’ve had the opportunity to see a vast spectrum of jobs, companies, and bosses. I saw what worked, what didn’t, what I liked, and what I would want to avoid.

While not perfect, I couldn’t be prouder of how far DMC has come and what type of company we’ve created. Without a doubt, I have more than reached my initial goal of creating a company I’d want to work for, even if I didn’t own it.

With a bit of self-indulgence and some R&D from Bill Gross of Idealab, I decided to create a list of 25 business lessons to coincide with DMC’s 25th anniversary.

1. Focus on Hiring the Best People

Straight-up, the best decision I’ve made in the past 25 years was reaching out to a friend I met while doing research in grad school and asking him if he wanted to join me at DMC. That person is DMC’s CTO and my partner, Ken Brey. Ken didn’t have much directly applicable experience, but he is a brilliant problem solver who likes to learn new things. He set the foundation for the type of people we look for at DMC.

Hiring the right people has been the absolute key to DMC’s success. While we were doing a good job of it for the first decade of our existence, seeing Dr. Geoff Smart, the author of Who, speak in 2007, solidified and vastly improved our hiring processes. Having a focus on getting the best people at DMC and figuring out how to best allow them to reach their potential is our single best competitive advantage.

2. Culture Beats Strategy
Or, as Peter Drucker said, “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” A company’s culture is the prime driver for success, regardless of how effective its strategy may be.

From the Harvard Business Review article that I took the title of this lesson from: “Culture’s all that invisible stuff that glues organizations together.” It is hard to define a company’s culture without platitudes, generalities, and vagueness, but I’ll try.

Our culture starts with our people. DMC is exceptionally great at hiring exceptionally great people, and we do lots of things to facilitate relationships. I say, only half-joking, that we are going to manipulate people to become friends with their colleagues. There are so many benefits to being friends with your co-workers, including the fact that life is just that much better.

Our core values exemplify our culture.

3. Learn from Other People’s Successes
I have been a part of peer groups for over 20 years, ranging from informal groups to formal groups like EO, YPO, and my CSIA Executive Roundtable. I also attend conferences, visit other companies, host visitors from other companies, and more. Those who have been part of my journey (too many to list)—you know who you are—thank you!

4. Consider the Cobra Effect

I first learned about the Cobra Effect from a Freakonomics Podcast in 2012. Also known as a perverse incentive, it’s defined as “an incentive that has an unintended and undesirable result that is contrary to the intentions of its designers.”

So, whenever we are considering policy changes at DMC, we actively discuss possible unintended consequences and how people may (naturally) try to optimize the system to their benefit while possibly defeating the goal of the policy.

A personal example from a few months ago. To help us both get into better shape, I made a wager with a DMC colleague that I could outride him on my Peloton Bike. The data collection and metrics Peloton has are a great way to gamify exercise. During the contest, the two of us pushed each other hard and certainly did get into better shape. However, not only did I not prevail in the end, but I had also pushed myself so hard that I was too worn out for several weeks after to regularly work out and my fitness level actually declined.

5. Learn What Motivates People

Early on at DMC, I discovered MBOs—management by objectives. Besides the potential Cobra Effects, where people game the system to optimize results, I’ve learned that knowledge workers aren’t best motivated by MBOs.

When I read Drive, by Dan Pink (good Ted Talk here), my approach to management significantly changed. The gist of Drive is that knowledge workers (e.g., engineers, programmers, scientists, etc.) thrive in environments that offer autonomy, mastery, and purpose. It’s not always easy to follow, but it has changed how we operate for the better.

6. Be Nice

Anyone who has visited our Chicago office knows there’s a life-sized cutout of Patrick Swayze. Now, Mr. Swayze starred in many iconic movies, from Dirty Dancing (no one puts Baby in a corner) to Ghost (the only cinematic pottery scene I can recall) to Point Break (“Fear causes hesitation, and hesitation will cause your worst fears to come true”). This cutout came from the 1989 classic Roadhouse, where Patrick plays a “cooler” at a Missouri bar named Dalton. Dalton has three rules for the bouncers under his charge:

Expect the unexpected.
Always take fights outside
Be Nice

We use this scene from the movie as part of our customer service training (warning—it’s a bit coarse). The point of the scene related to DMC is that sometimes situations at work can get emotionally charged, and it’s somewhat natural to mirror someone who is upset. Yet, it is almost always best to remain calm, focus on the problem, and, whenever possible, be nice.

7. Will it Make the Boat Go Faster?

In 1998, the Great Britain Men’s Eight Rowing was underachieving, having not won an Olympic Medal since 1980 nor a Gold Olympic Medal since 1912. The team set an improbable goal of winning the Olympic Gold in two years.

They created an entirely new way of training, challenging everything they did, from diet to sleep to exercise to even recreation. Everything they did, they answered the question “Will it make the boat go faster?” If the answer was yes, they kept doing it; if not, they’d adapt.

Their results continued to improve and, on September 25th, 2000, they won Gold at the Sydney Olympics.

At DMC, we have begun to apply the philosophy of the GB rowing team across the company. Some examples:

At an individual level: Will it help with a person’s career development?
For a project: Will it make the system perform better? Or will it help the project meet specifications and stay on budget?
Company-wide: Will it make us more profitable? Will it help with retention? Will it help us maintain our core values?

On the flip side, some sage advice from Dwight Schrute, via Michael Scott.

8. Quality is Remembered Long After Price is Forgotten

This is something I remember reading as a young child in my parents’ Reader’s Digest magazine—probably in the quotable quotes section. It resonated, and it has stuck with me for decades. Until I started writing this, I didn’t know who the saying was attributed to.

So, while I absolutely extoll the virtues of frugality, I strongly believe that paying for quality products and services pays off in the long run.

9. Don’t Be Afraid to Fail

In May 2011, DMC moved to our current office location in Chicago. There was room for expansion, and we invested a fair amount of money in construction and furnishings, including installing a great rooftop deck. In January 2012, our landlord gave us the option of expanding to the second half of the floor. This would require another large investment as well as a pretty big increase in our monthly rent. We hadn’t even come close to filling out our existing space, so it seemed like a big risk. I spoke with a mentor of mine who reminded me of our goal to aggressively grow and asked if we were serious about growing. This made the expansion decision easy.

Over the years, many decisions go back to that conversation I had with Curtis. Should we open an office in Boston? Should we hire 20+ people in a single year? Should we expand our service offerings? While we’ve not always been 100% successful, I’ve never regretted trying something. And we’ve succeeded far more than not.

10. Validating Your Business Idea – Can You Make Your Friends Laugh?

While I like to think I’m pretty funny, I know in the scheme of things that my comedy level is somewhere between making friends laugh and making strangers laugh. I’m inconsistent at best, especially when quoting movies made before most DMC employees were born (“A hospital, what is it? It’s a big building with patients, but that’s not important right now.”).

What does this have to do with business? When trying to sell new products or services, it’s one thing to have people you know tell you that your idea is good. It’s another to get them to buy what you’re selling. Going all the way is where there’s more demand for your products than you can supply.

When I see companies trying to introduce something new, one piece of advice I give is to see if they can make their friends laugh. This means go out and get some key customers to pilot their offerings for free (or damn close to it). From there, they can determine if their offering might fit a market need and then go to the next stage. If they can’t make their friends laugh, it’s pretty unlikely they will be able to get strangers to pay to laugh.

11. Study to Learn vs. Study for the Grade

There are two paths to success in school — study for the grade or study to learn the material. Like most things that put people in one of two camps, this is a false dichotomy (don’t get me started on Myers-Briggs). Yet, it does remind me of the joke: There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don’t.

I like to apply the concept of studying for the grade or studying to learn in business. Some companies have specific growth/profitability/monetization goals. Others focus more on delivering great value/creating a great culture/having sustainable processes. Obviously, you can’t run a profitable company without delivering value and can’t have a great culture if you’re not profitable, but the company’s focus can markedly change how the company operates. Just as the student who studies for the high mark may learn the material, the company focused on maximizing profit may end up with a great culture (or vice versa).

In college, I was more of a study to get the grade type of student (see Tim Jager’s comments about “college Frank” not being able to get a job here), at DMC we run things to create a great company and deliver great value to our clients (but don’t get me wrong—see our Core Value number 4!)

12. What Gets Measured Gets Done

Dashboarding of company metrics has become much more ubiquitous since we started tracking our Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on a weekly basis around 2007. Dashboards that refresh automatically allow us to make process changes, both small and large, and quickly determine the impact and effectiveness of such changes. I can honestly say that having up-to-date and historical data on both individual and company performance has made our company more profitable, nimble, and easier to run.

A few tips:

Measuring progress towards a specific target/goal is a very strong incentive to drive people to succeed.
Whatever you decide to measure should align with the achievement of company goals.
Adding outlier thresholds (Red/Yellow/Green) will save you a lot of time analyzing what you decide to measure.
Consider defining a playbook of steps to take when a KPI starts to trend in the wrong direction or turns Red.
For ongoing activities that you measure, don’t be afraid to raise the target to foster a culture of continuous improvement.

13. Write Things Down

For an individual, writing things down is important. For an organization, it’s essential. At DMC, we put a ton of effort into documenting our SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), keeping our knowledge base current and searchable, and automating routine processes with an eye on how to improve them.

Leveraging the power of tribal knowledge with tools like SharePoint, Monday, Confluence, and others turns knowledge into wisdom, which can allow a company to become worth far more than the sum of its parts.

14. Sit on Your Hands When Teaching Someone to Do Something

The best way of learning to do something is to, you know, actually do it. But the easiest way to show someone how to do something is to demonstrate it. Here’s a simple one—teach a child how to tie their shoes. It’s something most people do all the time without thinking (though I prefer slip-ons). If you’re trying to teach someone how to do it by showing them, it’s unlikely they will be successful.

Extend that to trying to show someone how to use new software. For the seasoned person, all the menus are second nature, and they can click through them quickly without thinking about it. For the person following along, it may make sense to watch. But after they’re actually using the software themselves, they won’t usually “get it.” While it’s easier to teach by showing, the hands-on labs approach is much better for the learner.

15. Think About the Future When Designing a System

When I was growing up in Massachusetts, a bottle bill was instituted where there was a $0.05 deposit on every beer and soda bottle and can. Now, never mind that lawmakers didn’t anticipate the tremendous rise of bottled waters and other non-carbonated beverages, which aren’t covered by the “forced” recycling law; they also didn’t implement an inflation index to the bill. In 1982 prices, the deposit is only worth $0.018, which is why it seems many people don’t return their empties nowadays. Whereas when I was in college in the late ’80s/early ’90s, we treated the empties like gold and used them to subsidize our beer money.

I don’t know if the Massachusetts lawmakers considered the long-term effects of their law or not (they probably figured it would become someone else’s problem), but there’s no way a well-thought-out plan would ignore inflation.

In programming, hard-coding values requires a program’s source code to be changed anytime input or configuration variables need to be changed. While there are numbers that won’t change, they are called constants and should be explicitly defined as such. Anytime I interact with software that is inflexible, I have to question whether the programmer was lazy, ignorant, or both.

16. Life is Easier When You Assume Positive Intent

While most people have been burned by unscrupulous individuals, assuming everyone you meet is out to get you can make for a difficult life both personally and professionally. Starting with the assumption that people aren’t nefarious and validating that everyone’s expectations are understood and being met is a much easier approach to life than being skeptical of every person you meet.

There will always be exceptions, but an interesting study I read shows that crime and corruption are lower in societies with high trust.

17. Prioritize Sleep

When my wife and I were expecting our first daughter, some friends bought us the book Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Marc Weissbluth, M.D. In the book, Dr. Weissbluth talks about how many behavioral problems that babies have (irritability, short temper, lack of focus, etc.) are rooted in lack of sleep and/or poor sleep habits. As I was reading that, I reflected on my own sleep habits and behaviors and realized that when I was emotionally at my worst, I could almost always attribute it to poor sleep. I used to believe that I could go for days with minimal sleep and make it up on the weekend (if I was lucky), but that didn’t always work out so well.

Since then, I have tried to prioritize sleep. While it’s not always been easy, with raising two daughters, opening eight offices around the country, and general life, I find that having a good day begins with a good night’s sleep. Although I occasionally still burn the candle at both ends, I try to avoid it as it’s not very healthy for me. Maybe Dr. Weissbluth can write a new book—Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Entrepreneur.

18. Carefully Choose Your Peers

When people are interviewing at DMC, particularly entry-level candidates, I recommend that they assess their potential peers and ask themselves if they would aspire to become like them. I also ask them to apply the same lens to their other career options. Someone can impart their own personality onto groups, but it’s more likely that people will become like the group they join than vice versa. Fortunately, DMC is full of great people, so candidates who apply this lens generally choose DMC.

19. WRAP

A great book from the Heath brothers is Decisive. I have a natural tendency to make quick decisions, which can serve me well but can also backfire, especially if I’ve got decision fatigue or actual fatigue. Dan & Chip came up with a very effective decision-making model:

Widen Options – Choices don’t have to be binary. When we began our geographic expansion plans, rather than pick one target city, we evaluated many options before choosing Boston for our first regional office. In doing so, we were able to hone in on what criteria were the most important and make a more informed decision.
Reality Test Your Assumptions – When we focused on Boston for our first expansion city, we took many scouting trips there. We had countless meetings and calls with existing and potential customers, partners, and employees to assess viability.
Attain Some Distance – This is a double-edged sword. The saying, “more is lost from indecision than bad decisions,” certainly has merit, but not making a snap decision is certainly not the same as being indecisive.
Prepare to Be Wrong – When making big decisions at DMC, one tool we really like to use is the pre-mortem. We assess all the things that could go wrong and what could be done to prevent them. We also assess the impact of what the impact of failure would be. Contrary to some popular wisdom, most successful entrepreneurs aren’t huge risk-takers.

20. Has This Problem Been Solved Before?

We work on new systems and products all the time, and while much of what we do is truly novel, many of the pieces of problems we’re solving have already been solved. It’s our job to not only understand the problem and create a novel solution but also to leverage the existing knowledge of DMC and the rest of the world.

Credit: Mahesh Paolini-Subramanya

21. Nothing Can Take the Place of Persistence

This quote was on my father’s desk growing up, and it has always stuck with me:

22. A Customer is the Most Important Person in Any Business

Another printout my father had framed on his desk was about the customer being the most important person in any business.

We created a modified version of the above to match our customer service. This is from a blog I posted in 2009, but it is still relevant today:

A Customer Is…

A Customer is the most important person in any business.
A Customer is not dependent upon us. We are dependent upon the customer.
A Customer does us a favor by doing business with us.
A Customer is the sole purpose of our work, not an interruption.
A Customer is a human being with feelings and deserves to be treated with respect.
Our Customer’s success is the key to our success.

23. It is Better to Ask Forgiveness Than Permission

We empower people to try things that may or may not work, to experiment and see if it fails fast or sticks. Another term from Decisive that we use all the time is “ooch.” To ooch an idea means conducting small experiments to test one’s hypothesis rather than leaping all the way in. This has worked out for us in a lot of ways, including our use of Slack, GitLab, Monday, Confluence, creating a custom timer application, our Yearly Office Events, and more.

24. Follow the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule suggests that you get 80% of your results from 20% of your efforts. Don’t waste your energy on the long-tail efforts. Instead, prioritize the top 10% or 20% of items that are the most vital rather than busying yourself with the least important 80%. Setting SMART goals will help!

25. Start With Why

In his book Start With Why, Simon Sinek discusses how great leaders inspire action (check out his Ted Talk, too). He uses a model called the Golden Circle to explain the framework for the Why, aka your purpose.

What’s my Why? I want to make sure that everyone at DMC has the opportunity to reach their potential.

Thanks for reading or perhaps just skipping to the end. With my last lesson, if you’re not sure where to start, figuring out your Why will help guide you through the rest.

Learn more about DMC’s company culture and contact us for your next project.

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DMC is Supporting Our Clients During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Frank Riordan — Mon, 23 Mar 2020 20:07:00 +0000

Amid the rapidly evolving coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we have taken steps to ensure we will continue delivering services while protecting our staff, clients, and other partners.

Our Commitment to Provide Services

DMC is operating at full capacity from our eight offices positioned across the U.S. We continue to support our clients both remotely and onsite.

Onsite Support

When needed, DMC is providing onsite support for businesses delivering essential services. As airline travel is being curtailed, we are servicing customers onsite within an eight-hour drive of any of our eight offices (and in some cases, even further). Additionally, we have a network of national partners we can work with to provide onsite support to customers anywhere in the continental U.S.

Remote Support

DMC has extensive expertise in delivering support remotely to clients. Many of our clients are utilizing our remote support capabilities if there are concerns for onsite time.

Here are some examples of how DMC delivers remote support:

TIA Portal Built-in Remote Access Utility with Siemens WinCC Sm@rtServer
Connecting to an Allen-Bradley PLC through an eWON Module
Data Management Using National Instruments SystemLink
Function Simulation with Siemens' S7-PLCSIM Advanced
Sinema RC Server for Remote VPN Connection Across Devices and Locations
Remotely View Siemens MP277 and Siemens WinCC Flex Projects
Update a Siemens PLC without TIA Portal Using the SIMATIC Automation Tool and Use it to Download Safety Programs and HMIs
Mobile HMI/SCADA Access Using Siemens SIMATIC WinCC V7 and WinCC OA Mobile UI, Rockwell FactoryTalk ViewPoint, Ignition Perspective Module, Wonderware InTouchAccess Anywhere, and Iconics MobileHMI
Collaboration tools like Teams, Zoom, Slack, Skype, GoToAssist, RemoteAssist, FaceTime, Google Hangouts, and Microsoft Office 365 applications

Protecting Our Staff, Clients, and Partners

DMC is taking measures to ensure that all our employees, clients, other partners remain safe. These measures include:

Extensive communications to our staff about routine precautions as recommended by the CDC, particularly good hygiene practices while on-site, traveling, or in public places
DMC has adopted a “work from home” model to reduce physical contact
Advising staff to follow CDC guidelines on what to do if they think they may have been exposed

If there’s any way we can help you please reach out to us.

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Achieving CSIA Certification

Frank Riordan — Mon, 20 Jan 2020 13:18:03 +0000

It can be difficult to assure current and potential clients that you run your business well. Moreover, if you are honest with yourself, you know you could run your business better. It can be difficult as a controls system integrator to find business best practices that apply to your specific operational challenges. The Control Systems Integrators Association (CSIA) was established to address the specific business practices of controls system integrators. DMC became a certified member of CSIA in April, 2009 to both receive recognition for having good business practices and continue to improve our operations. In this whitepaper, the author discusses member certification and the reasons DMC pursued it; general audit preparations and DMC’s specific strategies; and the results of DMC’s audit and next steps with CSIA.

Introduction to CSIA
Benefits of Certification
DMC and how we fit into CSIA
Preparing for the Certification Audit
Groundwork
Gathering the Evidence
The Audit and Beyond
Next Steps and Next Time
Conclusion
Bibliography

Introduction to CSIA

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CSIA was founded in 1994 with the following mission: “to bring successful system integration to the marketplace by creating recognition and demand for CSIA certified members; improving system integration best practices and performance; and providing an industry forum and networking opportunities” (1). CSIA is “committed to the business development of control system integration companies and their implementation of best practices” (1). CSIA introduced its Best Practices and Benchmarks in 1997 (now in its third revision) to provide a “framework for integrators to evaluate and continuously improve their own businesses” (2).

The Certified Member program was introduced in 2001. An integrator must meet the CSIA’s definition of an integrator (described below), “offer multi-vendor products for non-exclusive sale”, achieve revenues of $600,000 for three years (and maintain this revenue), and attend two CSIA Executive Conferences in a three-year period (3). Prospective members must pass a 3rd party audit and be re-certified every three years.

The annual CSIA Executive Conference takes place in late April or early May (the next one is April 29-May 1, 2010 in Seattle, WA). Seminar topics in the past have included KPIs, ROI, PM, strategic planning, sales capacity, and the future of plant automation (2). Presentation titles from the conference this year included “Five Secrets for a Successful Banking Relationship,” “Lead Qualification: Follow-up on Sales Leads,” “Net Promoter Score: A Specific Measurement of Customer Loyalty,” “Recession-Busting Market Opportunities,” and “CSIs Partnering with the Automation Distributor.” This conference provides an opportunity to network with peer organizations, learn from their experiences, and compare business practices and processes. DMC’s president has benefited greatly from attending these conferences and has expressed his regret at not attending sooner.

Figure 1: DMC’s President, Frank Riordan (on the right), networking at the Executive Conference Benefits of Certification

Benefits of Certification

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CSIA certification assures DMC’s clients that we are a “financially healthy company capable of completing projects in a professional and technically sound manner”. The client knows that DMC, along with all other certified members, has project management excellence, structured standards, a proven track record, and a culture of service, capability, and ethics. Rather than a more generic certification, CSIA certification is focused on our marketplace (4).

The CSIA certified member list helps clients looking for system integrators to find DMC. DMC is one of only three certified members in the Chicagoland area. DMC is able to display CSIA branding, pictured below, on our marketing materials, providing credibility to clients that are unfamiliar with our services.

Figure 2: CSIA Certified Member Brand (4)

In addition to providing more business opportunities, CSIA provides resources to improve business procedures. “The Best Practices and Benchmarks process serves as an ongoing ‘checks and balances’ tool that control system integrators can use in a ‘self-deterministic’ fashion” (4). The Best Practices and Benchmarks address many critical business areas, including human resources and project, quality, financial, and technical management. In addition to benchmarking against CSIA standards, networking opportunities, including the annual Executive Conference, allow system integrators to compare their business procedures to those of other integrators. Members can share solutions to management-related problems and evaluate their own performance relative to their peers. Networking through CSIA encourages accountability for following best practices and optimizing business performance.

DMC and How We Fit into CSIA

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CSIA defines a control system integrator as an “independent (or profit-loss division) value-added engineering organization that focuses on industrial control and information systems, manufacturing execution systems, and plant automation”, that has “application knowledge and technical expertise”, and provides an integrated solution to an engineering problem. This solution includes “final project engineering, documentation, procurement of hardware, development of custom software, installation, testing, and commissioning(5).

DMC is a consulting firm offering high-caliber engineering and software development services around Chicago and around the world since 1996. Our core areas include manufacturing, test and measurement, custom application development (for a variety of platforms), and SharePoint enterprise development. Our customers include Argonne National Laboratory, Bosch, Fermilab, Solo, Underwriters Laboratory, and Yaskawa.

DMC certainly meets CSIA’s definition of an integrator. DMC has a focus on industrial control and information systems. The engineers at DMC apply a wealth of knowledge and expertise in areas such as vision systems, motion control, software and database architecture, data acquisition, and signal processing. DMC specializes in custom software and has been involved in all phases of a project, including planning, design, implementation, deployment, and testing.

Another reason DMC fits into CSIA is that the president is engaged, “wants his company to be the best in class”, and “has the clout to take it there”. These are characteristics of a typical member company, according to CSIA. (6) The president has been improving business practices long before considering CSIA certification. He has implemented many initiatives to automatically track and then improve company metrics. DMC’s top executive shares CSIA’s belief that “being a good system integrator goes hand in hand with operating a good business” (7).

Preparing for the Certification Audit

Groundwork

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The first step in becoming a certified member is to become an associate member. Besides the many great benefits described above, associate members have access to A Guide to the CSIA’s Best Practices and Benchmarks, Third Revision (BP&B). This publication contains the requirements for certifications and is essential for the auditing process. The newest edition of this guide (3.01, approved January 28, 2009) marks those sections that are being audited at this time (8).

CSIA recommends treating certification as an internal project with a project manager who will delegate assignments to those employees with expertise in specific areas of audit, such as financial management. Assignments should have clear expectations and deadlines. (8) DMC’s president noted that distributing the effort is essential to accomplishing certification. Otherwise, the process either becomes one person’s full-time job or is never finished.

Setting a deadline was very important to kick-starting certification and keeping it on track. Once the auditing firm was hired and scheduled, it was certification or bust. CSIA notes that the audit requires evidence that procedures are being followed during several months of day-to-day operation (8). Often companies require 9 to 24 months for preparations (9). For DMC, this evidence had already existed, and the audit was scheduled for 2 months after beginning preparations.

CSIA provides both an audit mentor program and an audit preparation training program. For more information, contact CSIA.

There are two authorized auditors, Exotek and American Systems Registrar (ASR) (10). DMC hired ASR for no reason other than their availability to perform the audit before the 2009 Executive Conference, which was DMC’s self-imposed deadline. ASR and Exotek provide optional pre-audits that can highlight deficiencies and focus audit preparations. DMC did not have an external pre-audit performed. Internal audits are, of course, highly recommended.

Gathering the Evidence

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CSIA provides a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet for members only to manage and track audit preparation progress. It closely matches the audit report created later by the auditor. It includes those sections of BP&B included in the audit and a description of each section. There are fields for the certification project manager to assign a person to each section, set a completion date, mark whether or not the section is complete, and list any additional actions required. For use on the audit day, there are fields to describe evidence of compliance with each section and the location of supporting documents (8).

Instead of using this spreadsheet directly, DMC converted it into a Microsoft SharePoint list. Microsoft SharePoint is “an enterprise portal that allows users to share information, collaborate in the execution of business processes, and aggregate information from multiple data sources.” SharePoint allows businesses to establish best practices and make standard operating procedures (SOPs) easily accessible and editable through the use of Wikis. It can also support decision-making through the use of dashboards and Key Performance Indicator (KPI) views (11). SOPs and KPIs are items encouraged by CSIA.

A screenshot of the audit preparation SharePoint list is shown below. One advantage to using a SharePoint list is the ability to concurrently edit the list instead of having to check out the Excel spreadsheet when making modifications. Each person involved with the audit preparations could asynchronously keep their assignment information current ,so maintaining this list did not fall to the audit project manager.

Figure 3: DMC SharePoint Audit Preparation List

The criteria number (far-left column) and section columns correspond to the BP&B, and the description was taken from the audit preparation Excel spreadsheet. If a section needed additional preparation before the audit, that section was assigned to an individual. The Status column corresponds to the score that would be given by the auditor and contains a description of what that score means. This column represents DMC’s internal audit. The 2009 Audit Score column is the audit score DMC actually received. In most cases, the internal audit value was equal to or less than the actual value; being conservative on an internal audit is generally preferred.

The main link column usually contains a hyperlink to the SOP that documents a process to meet that particular item. The ability to click through to relevant documentation greatly simplified audit organization and facilitated the audit evaluation. For example, for item number 1.4.6: “Does the integrator have a system of adequate backup (every day, off-site storage, assigned person, rotated backup media)?”, the main link points to an SOP Wiki entitled “Server Data Back Up Procedure.” A screenshot of this article is included below.

Figure 4: SOP Wiki article demonstrating a data backup procedure

DMC has an extensive library of SOPs in the form of a Wiki. The library is centrally located and always accessible on SharePoint. Keeping this documentation electronic prevents employees from using outdated hard copies, and the wikis are easily editable, which simplifies keeping them up-to-date. A process has been defined for the approval of SOP updates by the management team. The library is searchable within itself and as a part of a general search of our SharePoint site.

In addition to the SOPs, which document the official processes, the audit preparation SharePoint list includes evidence of the B&BP items in day-to-day operations. Four representative projects were chosen, and the use of relevant items in those projects was described in each project’s column. Whenever possible, hyperlinks were included to click through to actual documents that resulted from following DMC’s SOPs. For example, for item number 5.01.1: “Is the work done by the integrator contractually authorized?”, the main link points to an SOP entitled “Customer PO Processing.” In the customer fields, the words here in blue text are hyperlinks to actual documents related to this requirement- proposals and purchase orders.

Figure 5: Audit Preparation Item showing links to supporting documentation

In the example below, there is some explanation of how the requirement was met on different projects with customers who have different requirements. There are also links to documentation inside and outside of SharePoint.

Figure 6: Audit Preparation Item explaining specific examples and providing links to documentation

The audit preparation project manager was responsible for reviewing this list and ensuring each employee kept the sections to which they were assigned current. A status update meeting was held every 1-2 weeks to discuss the overall status and progress of preparations and make certain all areas were being covered.

The Audit and Beyond

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The audit takes a whole day. The auditor went through the audit item list, and DMC discussed the process evidence and day-to-day evidence with him. Each item in the auditor’s report had a corresponding item in the SharePoint list, and all evidence was just a click away. The auditor provided feedback on each item as it was discussed and assigned each item a score.

The auditor compiled the scores and additional overall comments into a CSIA Certification Audit Report. These overall comments complemented DMC’s training of new employees in DMC’s operations; the recruitment of new employees that has led to high retention; a high level of detail; the use of computer tools to reduce paperwork and project status confusion; and extensive use of SharePoint to document and retain contracts.

The auditor also compiled an Opportunity for Improvement Report. This report included four items. The first was the establishment of a timetable for reviewing the succession planning process. The second item was developing a tool to track the number of project hours used versus the project percent complete, in order to identify projects that are in trouble. The third item was a project event log to capture a daily project status. Items two and three are currently being addressed as part of a SharePoint project status dashboard. The fourth item related to customer survey results and a Prato analysis.

Businesses are assigned a level based on the number of personnel and amount of business, with each level having a benchmark score. DMC is a level 2 business. DMC received an overall score of 245, which exceeded the benchmark score for our business level of 238. We met or exceeded benchmark scores in 6 of the 8 sections of the B&BP.

Next Steps and Next Time

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As mentioned above, some specific opportunities for improvement identified by the auditor are currently being addressed. DMC visits the benchmark list and performs an internal audit on a quarterly basis. This internal audit is meant to increase the scores of items that are included in the audit and verify that other items in the B&BP are handled appropriately. A CSIA team has also been formed to review compliance with the B&BP on a more regular basis and report their finding to the entire company.

DMC is up for recertification in 2012 and strives to improve our audit scores across the board. For the audit in 2012, DMC will follow a process very similar to the one described here. The project and resource management surrounding DMC’s audit preparations were very efficient, and the day of the audit ran very smoothly. DMC will be enhancing and improving its use of SharePoint, and even more evidence of process compliance and day-to-day application will be contained there.

DMC’s president regrets waiting so long to pursue these initiatives. He wishes he had become involved with CSIA sooner in terms of attending the executive conferences and becoming certified.

Conclusion

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Most companies claim to be world-class organizations and believe they are doing things well. CSIA defines the way a control system integrator should operate in order to be world-class. This is defined through the Best Practices and Benchmarks, and expounded through the seminars and keynote addresses at the Executive Conference.

Bibliography

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1. Control System Integrators Association. Welcome to CSIA. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/.

2. 15th Annual CSIA Executive Conference Recap. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] May 2008. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/news/documents/ConferenceRecap080521FINAL.doc.

3. Requirements. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/join/apply_requirements.htm.

4. Registered Member Program. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/about/regmem_program.htm.

5. About System Integrators. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/about/system_integrators.htm.

6. WhyJoinCSIA. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/WhyJoinCSIA.htm.

7. Mission and History. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/about/mission_history.htm.

8. Lowe, Robert. CSIA Registered Member Audit Preparation Guide. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] [Cited: December 18, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/controlsysmembersonly/documents/CSIAAuditPreparationGuide-Rev3_000.doc.

9. Riordan, Frank. DMC Going for CSIA Certification. DMC’s Web site. [Online] February 26, 2009. [Cited: December 18, 2009.] https://static.dmcinfo.com/blog/articletype/articleview/articleid/11/dmc-going-for-csiacertification.aspx

10. Control System Integrators Association. Registered Member Program (Members Only). Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] Telesian Technology. [Cited: December 18, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/controlsysmembersonly/regmem_program.htm.

11. DMC, Inc. SharePoint Consulting Services. DMC, Inc. Web site. [Online] [Cited: December 18, 2009.] https://static.dmcinfo.com/Services/Custom-Software-Engineering/SharePoint-Consulting-Services.aspx

12. Control System Integrators Association. Best Practices and Benchmarks 2008. Control System Integrators Association Web site. [Online] September 4, 2008. [Cited: December 11, 2009.] http://www.controlsys.org/documents/FinalBPBVersion.pdf.

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DMC Chicago to Host CSIA Event for Midwest System Integrators

Frank Riordan — Wed, 22 Aug 2018 13:55:55 +0000

DMC is excited to partner with CSIA in hosting an SI Regional Event at our Chicago office on September 5. The half-day event will include a lunch, tour of the MxD (Manufacturing x Digital), SI Discussion Roundtable, and networking event on DMC’s rooftop deck.

For the SI Discussion Roundtable, we aim to replicate a “roundtable” discussion format commonly used at peer group meetings. We ask the participants to submit questions in advance related to the management of SI businesses to Jose Rivera (ceo@controlsys.org).

All CSIA SI members are invited, as well as all SI CSIA membership prospects. We expect a group of 12-20 SIs, mostly those with offices and/or clients in the vicinity. Learn more about the event.

DMC’s Chicago office will host the CSIA Regional SI Event on September 5

Attendees will tour MxD(credit: MxD)

Location

DMC Chicago offices
2222 N Elston Ave #200
Chicago, IL 60614

Agenda

12:00 – 1:00 PM – Lunch served at DMC to the attendees as they arrive
1:00 PM – Self-drive to the MxD (1415 N Cherry Ave, Chicago, IL 60642) We encourage attendees to share rides
1:30 – 3:30 PM – Tour of MxD – kindly sponsored by Siemens
3:30 PM – Return drive to DMC
4:00 – 6:00 PM – SI Discussion Roundtable
6:00 – 9:00 PM – Social networking event at DMC rooftop (weather permitting) or nearby WhirlyBall

Registration

We ask those interested in attending to register as soon as possible as we have limited capacity. The registration fee is $50.

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A Brief Visual History of DMC

Frank Riordan — Wed, 08 Jun 2016 09:27:36 +0000

DMC celebrates its 20th anniversary this month, and we're reflecting on many of our milestones and accomplishments. From expanding to five offices to working on projects all over the world, DMC as a company has developed immensely.

The charts below display all of the countries DMC has worked in, the evolution of the DMC logo, and the growth of our company.

We're fortunate to have worked on projects across the U.S.A. and around the globe. So far, DMC has worked in 43 states and 24 countries.

While we've been using our current logo since 2011, DMC's look has changed over the years. If you're interested, I wrote a blog post about the evolution of DMC's logo.

DMC has come a long way since the company was just me and a laptop. There were many years of slow, steady growth before we opened our first expansion office in 2013. Now we are proud to have five offices and over 100 employees.

Our company milestones and continued growth would not be possible without our clients, vendors, partners, employees and friends. Thank you!

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DMC Chicago’s 20th Anniversary Party

Frank Riordan — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 10:32:58 +0000

DMC is turning 20 this year, and we’re hosting events in each of our five office locations to celebrate. Although our official anniversary date is in July, we marked DMC’s 20-year milestone at the Chicago office on June 2.

We were thrilled that so many of our clients, colleagues, and friends were able to celebrate DMC’s 20th Anniversary. Around 200 people attended throughout the night, making this DMC’s largest party ever. With entertainment like face painters, caricatures, a photo booth, and dancing to a live band, the party was in full swing all night!

The food and drink menu paid tribute to the five cities where DMC has an office. The Texas brisket and Boston baked bean cups were some favorites. The most popular dessert was the Boston Cream Pie. Denver was represented by its delicious craft beers, like Breckenridge Brewery’s Avalanche IPA.

We pitted Chicago Style Pizza and New York Style Pizza against each other in a taste-off. We set up a “text-to-vote” system so people could text in which type of pizza they liked more. Although it was very close, the conclusion was that Chicago Style pizza (from Pequod’s) was favored by 53% of the attendees and New York style pizza (from Dante’s) was favored by 47% of the attendees. We like to think the real winner was the party guests who had fun trying the pies!

We also celebrated a summertime staple of both Chicago and New York by serving hot dogs from a cart on our roof deck. The beautifully prepared hot dogs were a great addition to the skyline views from our roof and were a hit of the party!

In addition to the food menu, DMC cities were represented with signature cocktails. Contrary to popular belief, the Chicago Malort cocktail was surprisingly very good when mixed with gin and chrysanthemum nectar. Representing Houston was the delicious margarita, while the Cape Codder highlighted Boston and New York had the classic Manhattan.

We enjoyed a beautiful day for the party with clear views of the Chicago skyline from our roof top deck. Since DMC was founded in the ’90s, a ’90s cover band called the Walk-Ins rocked out on the roof deck. They played everyone’s favorite 1990’s hits and brought a great energy to the evening.

During FedEx Day this year, a few DMC employees created handmade games for the rooftop. They made giant checkers and giant Jenga, which our attendees had a lot of fun with during the party.

We transformed one of our conference rooms and time traveled back to 1996, the year DMC was founded. We had many decorations around the room that represented the year as well as a 1996 playlist playing highlighting the top movies, music, and events (like the Macarena, Independence Day, and the Bulls NBA championship!). There was also a photo montage of each employee in 1996. It was really fun for everyone to see what their coworkers looked like 20 years ago!

One of the most memorable aspects of the night was our DSLR green screen photo booth. Each person could pick out a background from all of the cities that DMC has offices in and use corresponding props. It turned out to be a huge success, and we can’t wait to use this at future events. Check out the photos here!

Guests enjoyed the opportunity to see some cool projects that our engineers have worked on. They had fun playing with the VR labyrinth, exploring the Tilt Table with an Oculus Rift. We also demonstrated our 3D printer, by printing a part to our gum ball machine throughout the night. The Rube Goldberg gum ball machine is made entirely of 3D printer parts, and is designed to get a gum ball to you in the funnest way possible.

We had a great night reflecting on how far DMC has come. Thanks to everyone who came to the party and who has supported DMC throughout the past 20 years!

You can see more photos from the party on our Facebook page and redeem your photo booth pictures her e!

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DMC to Present at the Siemens 2016 Automation Summit

Frank Riordan — Thu, 19 May 2016 14:36:40 +0000

The Siemens Automation Summit is one of our favorite events every year for sharing best practices and industry innovations. The 2016 Siemens Automation Summit will be held from June 27-30 at the Aria Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. It’s a great opportunity for attendees to take advantage of networking and training sessions focused on improving performance and efficiency with Siemens automation.

DMC is proud to be among the many presenters at this year’s summit. If you’re attending, we’d love to see you at our sessions.

Safety in a Snap: Tips & Tricks for Keeping Your Facility Safe – James Condon

Tuesday, June 28 2:00-2:45 pm

Siemens has implemented safety PLCs for years, and now with TIA Portal executing a safe solution has become even easier. With an S7-1500 or S7-1200 safety PLC, safe remote I/O, and safe drives, it is possible to quickly implement a safe solution within TIA Portal. This reduces the cost and clutter of running wire throughout your facility to and from hard-wired contactors that are often used as a safety solution. Using a safety PLC also gives better status and quicker diagnostics of safety in your facility.

We will look at how to create a safety program from scratch to safely control a drive and several outputs in conjunction with a guard switch and an emergency stop. We will also discuss some basic safety program troubleshooting, creating safety zones within a facility, and some common mistakes that occur when creating a safety program for a Siemens PLC.

Developing PLC and HMI Code Faster Through Use of the Siemens Open Library – John Sullivan
Tuesday, June 28, 3:00-3:45 pm

The Siemens platforms have always encouraged the use of modular, reusable, and object-oriented code. Until recently, this meant that everyone was responsible for creating and maintaining their own internal library for any reusable code. This session will discuss some of the reusable open source code that is available to help make your code development faster and easier. The available library includes tested and verified PLC function blocks, data types, and HMI objects for the control of many common industrial objects (drives, valves, analog, etc.). These PLC function blocks are paired with HMI faceplates and connected with a single tag to provide easy configuration and speed up HMI development. In this presentation we will discuss how to obtain, use, and contribute to the library.

Siemens Automation Summit 2015

Tips and Tricks for Motion with S7-1500 CPU – David Sestrich
Tuesday, June 28, 4:00-4:45 pm

Siemens S7-1500 PLCs are now equipped with several powerful motion control options that can be leveraged for simple solutions. These functions enable coordinated motion between several axes using Siemens G120 and S120 drives. Users also benefit from recent updates to the TIA Portal that added new motion features.

This presentation will highlight several of the most used features STEP 7 Easy Motion Control has to offer, and offer tips and tricks to get the most out of your system. We’ll discuss when and why to use S7-1500 Easy Motion instead of Simotion, and how to select the appropriate hardware for an application. We’ll cover the latest features released for technology blocks and motion tasks. The presentation will highlight common setup tasks and important settings for a successful integration. Finally, attendees will learn novel approaches to work with the minor limitations of Easy Motion, including example code and test data.

User Communities – Coming to a City Near You – Frank Riordan
Wednesday, June 29, 1:45-2:30 pm

Learn how Siemens Automation and Drives users are coming together to learn from each other and network. The community meetings occur with Siemens experts and are typically centered around a specific topic that is selected by users. This activity is happening all around the country and can come to your City today!

Come learn about how this revolutionary event is driven by end users who use Siemens products on a daily basis. This community is for any user of Siemens who wants to network with other users, ask questions of experts and get an opportunity to learn about specific technologies that Siemens offers in the marketplace. We will talk about the event, planning, materials and logistics related to this type of user event. We will also discuss how we can execute such an event in your city. The community is user led and user driven, since there is a focus on Siemens products, there will be Siemens representation from the major Automation and Drives segments at these meetings. The ChUG (Chicagoland User Group) chapter of the community is just the first example of this exciting opportunity for users to share in this peer-to-peer learning opportunity.

Siemens Automation Summit 2015

Using the 1200F and TIA Portal for Ultra-High Purity Hydrogen Generation – Jason Mayes with Adam Belair & Mike Spaner of Proton OnSite
Wednesday, June 29, 2:45-3:30 pm

Proton OnSite is a global leader in hydrogen energy and innovative gas solutions. In addition to nitrogen and zero air generation systems, Proton OnSite designs and manufactures both custom and commercial hydrogen generation systems for laboratory, industrial, and emerging market applications. Recently, Proton OnSite made the decision to replace the custom PCB-based control system in our existing H-Series hydrogen generator with an S7-1200F and Comfort Panel solution. This decision has provided Proton OnSite with multiple benefits including increased performance, a modernized UI, and improved reliability all in an off-the-shelf hardware solution with globally available parts and support.

In this presentation, Proton OnSite and DMC, Inc., will focus on the motivations for the project as well as the technical advantages provided using TIA Portal and the 1200F, including the development of an internal software library that has been re-used for multiple other projects (including custom PID controllers with advanced gain scheduling and automatic, bumpless transfer capabilities, HMI themes, faceplates, icon libraries, and custom datalogging scripts), the elimination of a secondary safety controller with the safety integrated S7-1200F, simple Modbus integration and more.

Learn more about DMC’s partnership with Siemens.

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DMC to Host Siemens Chicagoland User Group (ChUG) June Meeting

Frank Riordan — Mon, 16 May 2016 12:20:14 +0000

This event has been postponed due to a scheduling conflict. We will provide a new posting as updated event information becomes available.

After a successful inaugural event in April, DMC is excited to announce that we will be hosting the second Siemens Chicagoland User Group (ChUG) meeting at our Chicago office on June 8.

Location: DMC Chicago (2222 N. Elston, Chicago, IL 60614)
Date: June 8, 2016
Time: 5:30 pm – 8 pm

Event Description

The goal of the Siemens Chicagoland User Group is to help everyone improve their automation engineering capabilities through the sharing of best practices and experiences, networking, and learning from topical presentations.

For this event, we will be opening up the floor to the users for an interactive “Bring Your Own Challenge” section. This is a great opportunity to get advice and input from the Siemens community. We also invite members of the Siemens community to share success stories. We want to hear about any instances when users have successfully implemented a new or challenging Siemens solution and gained new knowledge.

This event is open to anyone who wishes to attend and will help us shape the direction of this initiative and content for future meetings.

We hope to see you there!

Agenda

Let us know if you can make it!
RSVP: Yes / No / Maybe.

Learn more about DMC's partnership with Siemens.

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DMC Hosting Inaugural Chicagoland Siemens User Group

Frank Riordan — Wed, 09 Mar 2016 15:46:52 +0000

DMC is thrilled to announce that we will be hosting the kick-off Chicagoland Siemens User Group meeting at our Chicago office.

Location: DMC Chicago (2222 N. Elston, Chicago, IL 60614)
Date: April 7, 2016
Time: 5:30 pm – 8pm

Event Description

As part of an initiative to grow the local Siemens User Community, this event is intended to help local Siemens users improve their automation engineering capabilities. The event will give users an opportunity to share best practices and experiences through networking and topical presentations that we hope will be beneficial to users of all skill levels.

This inaugural event is open to anyone who wishes to attend and will help us shape the direction of this initiative and content for future meetings.

We hope to see you there!

Agenda

RSVP: Yes / No / Maybe

Can’t make it? If you’re unable to attend this first event but are interested in participating in future events, you can still help shape the group by responding to this short survey. The questions will help give us a better idea of desired dates, locations, and topics for the future.

Learn more about DMC’s partnership with Siemens.

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