A new booth, an interactive field instrument display and a “wall of lights” drew attendees into the Yokogawa booth. One highlighted area of the booth was a six-foot high, 1500 pound skid complete with Fieldbus-ready pressure and temperature transmitters, flowmeters, pH and conductivity analyzers, a temperature controller and a 30-gallon water tank that enabled booth staff to make interactive demonstrations. Visitors learned about a number of predictive diagnostics available on Yokogawa instruments, and a tie-in with the CENTUM CS 3000 display allowed them to view related process information.

One group of young design engineers commented that they “liked the setup because it helped them to see equipment mounting, connections and interoperability on several different types of equipment all at a glance.”

Red and green blinking lights drew attention to a wall of recorders, controllers and data acquisition products. Rounding out the booth displays were a free-standing gas chromatograph, some gas and liquid analyzers, a FieldMate demonstration area and a display of several portable handheld testers, meters and monitors. Interest in Yokogawa products was strong and we came away from the show with 250 leads.

Yokogawa staff played host to two different groups of students at the booth. One group of students from the Instituto Tecnologico Superior de Tantoyuca traveled 18 hours on a bus from Veracruz, Mexico, and was treated to a visit to Yokogawa's Sugar Land facility as well as spending time in the booth with our product experts. Professor of Electronic Engineering, Ing. Miguel Angel Barron Castelan, commented “taking advantage of the occasion, we were grateful for the opportunity to have visited the Yokogawa plant ... it has been very important for my students to visit the installation of a world leader in industrial automation.“ The second group was a group of Electronic Engineering students from Fort Bend Thurgood Marshall Engineering Academy located in Missouri City, Texas. The academy is a Pilot School that is funded in large part by Shell, Schlumberger and EM among others. Students viewed interactive demonstrations at the booth, followed by short talks and question/answer periods.

A standing room only crowd of approximately 400 (including several members of the press) enjoyed the sounds of live jazz music by local saxophone player, Dean James, and listened to a short speech by President & CEO, David Johnson. In his speech, Johnson revealed a 26% growth figure for Yokogawa North America followed by the surprise announcement that Yokogawa now appears to be the #2 Industrial Automation vendor. According to Johnson, “facts and figures prove Yokogawa is the fastest growing IA supplier in the world”, -- another indication that we are well on our way to becoming the #1 supplier by 2010!

As noted by Con Lau, General Manager Marketing for North America, “Our growing success in the North American marketplace is continuing to increase brand awareness of Yokogawa and bring new customers to our door, as evidenced by our booth traffic and the attendance at our hospitality event!”