My main reason to attend was to be in-person at the 11th Hermes Standard Initiative Meeting for the first time chaired by Markus Mittermair of Rehm Thermal Systems.

Unlike previous Productronica trade shows where I haven't stayed for the actual show, this time I had the Hermes and Ethernet Adaptors to promote so I actually had a reason to stay and engage in conversation with others at the trade show.

It would also be a long overdue reason to get away from the office having been locked down due to the pandemic.

I arrived on Sunday evening and this was the second time I had been to San Diego having stayed there on 'vacation' a decade before. Keeping the trip cheap, I planned not to hire a car this time as I was staying within the central city area and where the Expo was.

This time Uber was a thing but there was always the possibility of not being able to use mobile data so the question of how easy it would be to get about was always at the back of my mind. It all turned out fine with the longest trip being to and from the Airport and the rest was all walkable.

I presumed it would be held in the same room of the meeting of the IPC-CFX and on route I bumped into the previous chairman Håkan Sandell who was also on the hunt. It can be a bit surreal attending these events because so much of my research and study over the years has been online so it can be a bit awkward when you meet someone you have watched or read about online. You know a lot about what they do, but they know nothing about you.

One such person was Tamara Sites who heads up the business development of the CFX. Within the confusion of finding the room I was able to introduce myself to her.

So while I could have sat there listening in, if I spoke, or someone online spoke, we wouldn’t have heard each other. Secondly the voting system has adopted a KISS approach and the declaration is done via a text message from each company and no record is kept of who voted what.

This meeting's agenda was actually to allow the IPC to formally adopt the standard and one benefit of doing this would be to use IPC Works for voting and communication.

Being slightly in a panic, I was thankfully able to download the Microsoft Teams App onto my mobile phone, meanwhile using hand signals to cast the votes.

To me this was all 12 months too late and I had asked if this could have been done via an online micro meeting prior to the Expo. It has always been a drag to progression that votes are only conducted during the meetings which can be 6 or more months apart.

It would have been nice to use the Expo as a deal signing event and used this as a marketing boost that the standard desperately needs since a lot of quiet times during the pandemic. You can't go anywhere without seeing the CFX logo or a live demonstration and this is what the Hermes Standard needs.

From what I understand the IPC has indicated they will be hands off from changing anything and in my view the standard is done. It has replaced SMEMA PCB control so it's job-done from me. There has 'seemed' to be some reluctance of welcoming the IPC into the membership because it may open the doors to end customers injecting additions and taking control.

The membership is more clued up on the business politics of our industry so I can only play ignorant with this. That said, it was why I brought to the attention to the membership at the last meeting that the Scope was open ended. (...) at the end of the scope and so to close it would create some constraint to future changes.

Michael presented a general overview of what the CFX was and the progress they have made with the rollout of it so far.

The subject of hidden costs were raised which includes paid documentation and payment to have your product 'Qualified' and maybe this started to answer the question of why the Hermes membership was so weary to welcome the IPC in.

The SDK (Software Development Kit) is however free to use.

Finally on Thursday I approached the bigger equipment suppliers that I knew would already have upgraded to Hermes but may also use the Adaptor to support new sales or as an upgrade path for existing equipment.

The common theme of our sales approach is that the industry must know about the existence of the Adaptors and should use them as a tool. Direct sales will have to be delayed because the customer will decide when they need the upgrade based on the upgrade of their entire production line. The benefits of wanting to use the Hermes data is however more common but would require a one to one sales strategy which we can't commit to at the current time.

One such business was venture capital backed Arch Systems and their leadership team Andrew and Tim seemed to be very interested in the SMEMA Ethernet Adaptor and even recommended adding the term Line-Stop to the marketing.

With a hardware background, but after a start-up pivot now purely software, Arch Systems was in need of a device to collect the analytics of PCB moments which the Adaptor can do.

We share a customer of Flex Ltd and I had been asked by them to go and strike up a conversation with Arch so a nice partnership triangle may form over the coming years.

The trade show helped me open my eyes to the PCB conveyor market and American conveyor manufacturer Simplimatic is a good first example. A Software Developer from the company shared with me that they considered creating a device using a Raspberry Pi but they didn’t think it was worth their time and instead the PLCs of their new equipment handles the Hermes Standard directly.

This has been a common tail over the years. Creating a device many have tried but the maintenance of such a device versus the return on investment means it doesn’t make sense to large companies that are often already spinning plates between products. 

Well that is indeed true however due to market consolidation - that mainly being software businesses being acquired by hardware companies - this has changed who is happy to deal with who. 

This has historically been an industry of partnerships and unlike Apple who often ends their partnerships over time, instead when they are made within our industry they are made for life.

So when an acquisition occurs that alters these relationships and many customers have been left to default to the easy opinion of trading with the independent companies that have no links to others.

With Thursday being the last day and not flying back to the UK until late afternoon on the Friday, I spent Friday morning enjoying the January Sun of San Diego.

I really enjoyed the vibe at the Show. I'm not sure if it was simply because everyone was English speaking or because I know the American culture very well. Or maybe it just felt like a well earned break away from the office. Being able to talk about the product I had helped make for the last 3 years certainly helped.

One last memorable event was educating the staff on the SICK booth that they have their own Hermes SMEMA Connect product that they knew nothing about. All I can say to that is one Hermes Love :)