Yokogawa Celebrates 90

Isao Uchida, Yokogawa’s tenth chief executive officer, reviewed highlights of the company’s 90 years of business and reiterated his goal of making it the leading process automation company by 2010 at a conference of customers and press at the Hyatt Century hotel in Tokyo on Oct. 27. Simon Lam, chief executive officer of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) and Shell Petrochemical Co., of Nanhai, China, described Yokogawa’s important role in the industrial automation side of the construction of the huge petrochemical plant developed by the CNOOC and Shell joint venture. Lam also described how protection of the environment is an important design consideration.

A technical fair showing past, present and future followed the event. From chips supporting Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) providing enhanced security for instrumentation on Ethernet to strides in wireless 802.15.4 networking and high speed optical network switching, Yokogawa showed off its technical innovation side.

Also announced was FieldMate, a portable field device configuration and diagnostic tool. Shrugging off the current electronic device description language (EDDL) vs. field device tool (FDT) debate, Yokogawa supports both with this product. Expected to ship in 2006, this specially designed laptop computer with application software is targeted at large facilities where engineers and technicians need to move around to configure devices on the network.