2009 looks like a slow year for capital spending in many manufacturing plants, and that's bad news for many in the automation industry. But money will still be spent in other areas, primarily from maintenance and plant operations budgets.

Despite recent dips, it's apparent that energy and raw material prices have risen to new and permanently higher plateaus. It's also apparent that these higher prices will have a profound affect on machine design over the next few years in ways that are sometimes obvious but oft obscure. Let's start with energy prices, an item that is foremost in the minds of many machine builders.

At the recent Wonderware WonderWorld conference, Tesla Motors founder Martin Eberhard shared his vision for creating the world’s first sexy electric car. As Eberhard demonstrated via his multimedia presentation, electric cars have long been seen by many as “glorified golf carts”.Eberhard showed a series of slides that contrasted electric cars surrounded by geeks to gas-powered vehicles draped with lovely bodies.

Procter & Gamble's Rob Aleska says the packaged-goods giant is serious about deploying PackML on its machines and OEMs should expect to see PackML requirements in P&G specs. Where do you stand with PackML requirements?

To learn more read "Machine Design for the 21st Century"

Are customers ready for energy-efficient motors? Does total cost of ownership matter? Does anyone have a machine- or line-specific power-consumption metric? Does rewinding a motor still trump spending capital on a new one?

Find out more by reading "A New Ear in Machine Automation" and "Energy Blockbusters"

What contributions is automation technology making to the efficiency of machine and system manufacturers?

As a machine or robot builder automation professional, you've been hearing about open systems for years. But you have probably been frustrated if you tried to create an open automation system using components from competing vendors.

Many machine builder companies employ EEs and MEs, but just a handful of their employees are PEs. The PE label helps machine builder companies in the marketplace. However as companies expand and younger people are brought into the organizations, management faces differing opinions about cost, time and benefit of various certifications the company should or could have their degreed and non-degreed employees earn. The short list includes IEEE's Certified Software Development Professional program, ISA's CAP program and its CCST for technicians, and SME's CMfgE.

Some automation specifiers tell us they have no choice. They have to buy from the big boys. For a variety of reasons, others just won't consider smaller companies. Is everyone this headstrong?

Read our November cover story "Can Small Vendors Play Big?"

When expanding out of panel building into more complex machine control builds, machine builders are encouraged to upgrade from old and basic electrical schematic software to a more integrated tool set. What are some of the important functions to look for in a good electrical CAD program including how to judge databases, training requirements, upgrades and support?