The program and plans for the Yokogawa User Conference 2008 is beginning to take shape. Together with the steering committee and the Yokogawa event organization team a very exciting and interesting program will meet with your expectations. This year we have included our business partners not just in the technology fair but also a number of them will be presenting technical integration papers with Yokogawa production control systems.

We are currently talking with a number of keynote speakers from industry, the financial world, and key executives. The main theme of this year’s conference is “Delivering the Promise of Operational Excellence”. The keynote executive papers will address this initiative from the user’s perspective. Leading international companies have tentatively agreed to present papers and lead the discussion regarding initiatives of operational excellence. Among those companies are Shell, Merck, LyondellBasell, Dow Chemical and Uhde Services.

The conference will have a varied program with a mix of workshops, breakout sessions, and plenary presentations from both Yokogawa and Users. There will also be users only session on the Thursday afternoon, with a plenary reporting back session on the Friday morning. The Technology Fair, 350m2 will be open for most of the duration of the conference.

A new feature at this year’s conference will more than likely be a forum dedicated to “Building the future of process control beyond 2015”. We are considering how, when and for whom to run this forum. More details to follow. The forum will be chaired by Yokogawa Electric Corporation, R&D department.

Finally, a European Press Conference will be organized some time during the conference, once again with a global “primeur”. The European press will be invited to attend the whole conference. The conference will close lunch time on Friday 26th September, and the technology fair at 3pm

Tony Stanton
Corporate Marketing Manager
Yokogawa Europe B.V.