Plant Engineering names three to Editorial Advisory Board

Billy Taylor, David Skelton and Dr. Shi-Wan Lin will advise on content for readers.

By Plant Engineering January 5, 2017

Plant Engineering has named three new members to its Editorial Advisory Board, bringing the advisory panel to eight members. The Editorial Advisory Board will participate in content discussions and will contribute to Plant Engineering‘s overall editorial mission to provide content to assist plant managers in running their facilities smarter, safer and more efficiently.

The three new Editorial Advisory Board members are:

  • Billy Taylor, director of commercial and off-highway manufacturing for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Akron, Ohio;
  • David Skelton, vice president and general manager of Phoenix Contact Development and Manufacturing, Harrisburg, Pa.;
  • Dr. Shi-Wan Lin, CEO and a co-founder of Thingswise, LLC and a board member of the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC).

"These distinguished manufacturing leaders will provide great knowledge and leadership to Plant Engineering‘s readers through their counsel and their editorial contributions," said Bob Vavra, content manager for Plant Engineering. "As we enter another important year for manufacturing, their insights from the plant floor and from the technological forefront will help our readers prepare and prosper in 2017."

Billy Taylor

Billy Taylor leads Goodyear’s North American Tire operations, including engineering, capital investments and supply chain execution. He has more than 20 years of operations management experience. In his role as director he is responsible for driving operational excellence, delivering best-in-class product service and product quality, enabling high-value business growth.

Prior to accepting his current assignment, Taylor led large-scale manufacturing teams throughout North America. He has led union and union-free labor workforces as plant director, leading Goodyear’s largest volume and product complexity manufacturing sights and supporting Goodyear’s long-term strategies.

Taylor earned his MBA from Baker University, Baldwin City, Kansas and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Prairie View A&M University, Prairie View, Texas.

In industry, he is a member of the Shingo Institute’s executive advisory board, Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.

David Skelton

David Skelton was appointed to the role of vice president and general manager of Phoenix Contact Development and Manufacturing in January 2009. The group consists of eight business units with operations in Harrisburg, Pa., and Ann Arbor, Mich. Phoenix Contact received Plant Engineering‘s 2015 Top Plant award. Skelton has been with Phoenix Contact since 1999 in management roles of development, product marketing and industry marketing. Prior to Phoenix Contact, Skelton was employed by Rockwell Automation in sales management, sales and engineering roles.

Skelton serves on the board of Modbus, an open network standards organization. He holds a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from Milwaukee School of Engineering – Milwaukee, Wisc. Skelton resides in Harrisburg, Pa., is married, and has two sons and two daughters.

Dr. Shi-Wan Lin

Dr. Lin is co-chair of the Architecture Task Group in the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), where he is a leading contributor to its Industrial Internet Reference Architecture.

He has two decades of experience in industrial IoT system architecture, Big Data and Big Data analytic, enterprise software, cloud service, system security and trust, telecommunication and wireless data communication in both large corporate and startup settings.

In his day job, Shi-Wan is CEO and a co-founder of Thingswise, LLC, a company providing an IIoT data processing and analytics platform.

The three new board members join the current Editorial Advisory Board members: 

  • H. Landis "Lanny" Floyd, Electrical Safety Group, Inc.
  • Shon Isenhour, Eruditio, LLC
  • Dave Reiber, Reliabilityweb.com
  • Larry Turner, Hannover Fairs USA
  • Mark Watson, IHS Markit