More than 860 automation professionals attended the 2007 Siemens Automation Summit at Disney’s Coronado Springs Resort in Orlando — the largest summit in Siemens history. For three and a half days, hundreds of Siemens Energy & Automation customers, solutions partners and employees chose from more than 150 breakout sessions comprised of presentations by customers, industry analysts, partners and Siemens technology experts on the latest trends and technologies, customer success stories and best practices.

“A core value of the Summit is the facilitation of collaboration and best practice sharing. Over the last few days, we have witnessed tremendous cross-pollination among attendees and received excellent feedback from our user community,” said Raj Batra, vice-president, Automation and Motion Division, Siemens Energy & Automation. “I am extremely pleased with this year’s event. Through an open dialogue with our customers, partners and employees, we will continue to enhance the Summit experience and the opportunities it provides.”

The conference included keynote addresses by:

• Dennis Sadlowski, president and CEO, Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.

• Raj Batra, vice-president, Automation and Motion Division, Siemens Energy & Automation, Inc.

• John Caupert, director of the National Corn-to-Ethanol Research Center

• Dennis Chamberland, NASA

• Chris Colyer, Global Industry director for Manufacturing Operations Strategy, Microsoft

• Chris DaCosta, chairman, Siemens Automation Summit User Advisory Board and controls platform manager, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc.

• Dr. Gerd-Ulrich Spohr, director A&D Strategies and Technology, Siemens AG.

• Attendees of the conference were able to visit the Solutions Showcase, a 27,000 square-foot hall featuring 30 solutions partner exhibits as well as products from Siemens Energy & Automation and the newly acquired UGS Corp.

  Siemens announced its intention to acquire UGS Corp. earlier this year. UGS provides product lifecycle management software and services.

  Batra said that before the UGS acquisition, product and production lifecycles were disconnected and misaligned, with unstructured feedback. After the acquisition, product and production lifecycles are joined and aligned in closed-loop processes, he said.

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