EDITOR’S FILE: 4 Flow Control Things You Need to Know This Month

Jan. 23, 2015

Perspectives from the month that was in the world of Flow Control.

Perspectives from the month that was in the world of Flow Control.

1. 20 Years of Flow Control: This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Flow Control magazine. Launched in 1995 with the aim of serving technical professionals involved with designing, operating and maintaining fluid handling systems in a wide range of industries, Flow Control has leveraged its many years of experience to establish a unique niche and reputation for providing high-quality information to you, our subscribers. I congratulate everybody who helped Flow Control get to where it stands today. Here’s to another 20 years of success.

2. Training Time: It’s a new year, and we have two new training opportunities for you to enhance your skillset in 2015. Regular Flow Control columnists David W. Spitzer and Larry Bachus will be presenting three-day courses on Flow Measurement and Pumping Systems, respectively. I encourage you and your colleagues to take advantage of these important training opportunities. For more details, see flwctrl.com/flowseminar & flwctrl.com/pumpguy.

3. Oil & Gas Gender Gap: Results of a new global workforce survey, conducted by OilCareers.com and Air Energi, show a gender gap in the oil & gas industry persists despite ongoing efforts to recruit more women into the industry. According to hiring managers, the top three factors that significantly contributed to the gender gap in the oil & gas industry are:
1. A lack of women entering the industry (55 percent)
2. An industry culture created by a male-dominated environment (53 percent)
3. The logistics requirement, i.e., travel, shift, and working patterns in the field (30 percent)

For more on this story and an infographic, see flwctrl.com/og_gendergap.

4. Rockwell Automation Fair 2014: Our colleague Kevin Parker at Processing magazine attended the annual Rockwell Automation Fair, Nov. 9-10, in Anaheim, Calif. At the show, Parker gleaned some interesting perspective on key trends in process automation, including: 1. Hardware and software are more blended than ever. 2. Fog computing (a kind of cloud computing) is making headway in industrial engineering environments where latency is a critical concern.

For Parker’s full report from the Automation Fair, see flwctrl.com/rockwellfair2014.

Matt Migliore is the director of content for Flow Control magazine and FlowControlNetwork.com. He has been covering industrial process applications and technology for 12-plus years. Matt can be reached at 610 828-1711 or [email protected]. Follow Matt on Google+. Connect with Matt on LinkedIn.