About Us

1. What is the User Driven Enhancement Program?

As part of Emerson’s commitment to innovation, continuous improvement, and close collaboration with customers, the User Driven Enhancement Program (UDEP) was created to give the Emerson user community a coordinated voice to directly participate in and influence Emerson’s product enhancement plans. The program provides a formal mechanism for users to directly input and drive the development of specific enhancement ideas to existing functionality they value most and would like to see in Emerson Process Management offerings. A representative UDEP Customer Committee is charged and empowered to manage the idea evaluation and selection process for DeltaV®, AMS Suite, and PlantWeb® related enhancement ideas.

2. How does the UDEP work?

Throughout the year, Emerson Process users can submit enhancement ideas via an online input form located at www.UserIdeas-emerson.com. A focused UDEP Customer Committee directly manages the review, prioritization, and selection process for DeltaV, AMS Suite, and PlantWeb related enhancement ideas. Each year, the UDEP Committee works through a rigorous evaluation process to decide upon a “top list” of enhancements. In collaboration with Emerson, each “top list” enhancement is assigned a “point” cost based on the required development effort. The UDEP Committee then selects which ideas are implemented by Emerson in future releases by “spending” from an established UDEP budget. Set Emerson resources and development funding are committed specifically for UDEP considerations.

3. What is the UDEP Committee?

The UDEP Committee is the core user decision body for the UDEP. The committee is made up of a team of leading users who wish to see and closely drive specific enhancements in DeltaV®, AMS Suite, or PlantWeb® related functionality. Through the UDEP, the committee is charged and empowered to review, prioritize, and select user enhancement ideas that are developed by Emerson and incorporated in future releases. Collaborating closely with Emerson, the committee works with set Emerson resources and development funding to put user enhancement ideas to action. The UDEP Committee consists of voting members from a balance of major served process industries to represent the broader Emerson user community.

4. How does a user get on the committee?

There is an UDEP Committee candidate application that can be filled out and submitted to Emerson with facilitation from a customer’s Emerson sales lead. Applications will be reviewed by a cross-functional Emerson management selection team. In addition to balancing industry and world area representation, several other criteria as listed on the application will be considered. Requirements include a candidate’s ability to commit the required time to the program, including travel to Emerson (U.S.) twice a year and the ability to serve for a 3 year term. For additional information, email the UDEP at UDEP@emerson.com.

UDEP Committee Member Biographies


	Pat O’Donnell BP UDEP Chair Pat is a Principal Engineer – Instrumentation & Controls with BP Refining. He is a chemical engineer and a TÜV Functional Safety Engineer with over 20 years of experience in the chemical and refining industries. His expertise includes SIS, LOPA, Alarms, and DCS.

	Kurt Russell Eli Lilly and Company UDEP Vice-Chair Kurt is an Associate Consultant Engineer at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis, IN, working in the Biotechnology & Life Sciences manufacturing area. Kurt has worked in automation and control system engineering with multiple platforms over the past seventeen years. His current work involves managing multiple DeltaV implementations from an operational, system administrative, and project delivery perspective. All of the control systems he manages are FDA regulated and have a major focus on the batch offering as well as interfaces to data historians and other higher level information systems. While remaining current in technology, Kurt has been instrumental is sharing best practices and learning across the company. He holds a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

	Farrukh Chawla Saudi Aramco Farrukh Chawla is a professional engineer and is currently serving Saudi Aramco as Control Engineering Consultant in Process & Control Systems Department. He is the Technical Steering Committee Chairman for Emerson for past seven years. Farrukh has 35+ years’ experience in process control and decision support systems.

	Tom Ellis Lonza Biologics Tom Ellis is the Associate Director of Engineering, I&C for Lonza Biologics’ New England Operations. Tom has been with Lonza in Portsmouth, NH for the last 7 years serving first as a Senior Automation Engineer, and later as the Manager of the Instrumentation and Controls Group. Tom is responsible for leading a group of instrumentation/automation professionals, for setting the instrumentation/automation strategy for Lonza’s New England operations, and serves as a process automation consultant for Lonza’s biopharmaceutical operations (both locally and globally). Prior to joining Lonza, Tom spent 14 years with Genetics Institute/Wyeth BioPharma in several I&C roles ranging from Instrumentation Technician to Senior Automation Engineer. Tom graduated from Northeastern University in Boston, MA with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering. Tom is a member of the ISA as well as a participant in the Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable (PAR) – an industry consortium of Automation Professionals.

	Bob Fink DOW

	Philip Hale AOC LLC Philip is the Corporate Process Control Manager for AOC in Collierville, TN. His responsibilities include managing, developing and implementing automation projects for six manufacturing sites. AOC's manufacturing systems, including DeltaV and PROVOX, provide batch and continuous control to produce resins, gel coats, colorants and additives. Philip has 13 years of industrial automation and engineering experience utilizing a wide range of PLC and DCS control systems. Prior to joining AOC, he spent several years working for VRC (Emerson’s Local Business Partner in Memphis, TN); designing and implementing automation solutions for a variety of industries, including corn milling, resins, brewing, pharmaceuticals and specialty chemicals. Philip started his career as a Process Control Engineer in the Pulp & Paper industry with Westvaco in Charleston, SC and Packaging Corp. of America in Counce, TN. Philip received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Auburn University. He lives in Collierville, TN with his wife Betsy and children Tyler, Kaitlin, Emily, Will and Ben.

	Brett Hart Celanese Brett is a Global Process Automation Engineer for Celanese based at the Narrows, VA production facility. Brett has 20 years automation experience, primarily with Provox and DeltaV as well as some PLC products. His responsibilities include implementing the automation systems for large capital projects, implementing automation strategies for productivity improvements, and driving automation standardization across multiple facilities. Prior to his global responsibilities, Brett supported the Narrows, VA production facility in various roles including 6 years as the Process Automation Group Lead. Brett received a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology. Brett lives in Pearisburg, VA, with his wife Melanie and three children.

	Sara Hough Shell Global Solutions

	Bob Keyser Merck Bob is a Senior Automation Engineer at Merck & Co., Inc. based out of West Point Pennsylvania. He is responsible for the technical implementation of pharmaceutical capital projects especially in the vaccine, biotech, and sterile manufacturing areas. Bob has 16 years of pharmaceutical manufacturing experience and over 15 years of control system engineering experience including various PLC and DCS paltforms. He has a BS in Computer Science from DeSalles University. Bob lives in Telford PA and has two daughters Jennifer and Mary.

	Jaap Lageweg Sabic Innovative Plastics Jaap is a Process Automation Engineer at the Sabic-IP Bergen op Zoom facility in the Netherlands. He leads the in-house systems migration team and is currently responsible for the site wide Provox to DeltaV migration. He has more than 20 years DCS experience having also worked for BELLT-GCA B.V Zeist as a consultant implementing several projects for Unilever, Shell, DSM and others, with roles that included writing URS, FDS startup, commissioning, validation, and operator training. He also worked for Emerson Process Management as a senior consultant serving as a systems applications coordinator and a batch specialist.

	Timm Madden ExxonMobil Development Co. Timm Madden is the Sr. I&C Consultant for ExxonMobil Development Co. He has over 30 years of I&C experience in Refining and Upstream project execution. In his current position of Upstream Project Execution Advisor, Timm is responsible for the successful execution of the I&C aspects of ExxonMobil's Upstream projects. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Fieldbus Foundation. Timm received the BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering from LSU. He and his wife, Karen, live in Cypress, TX. Their two daughters are away at college.

	Tom Shaw Cargill

	Tracy Waller Savannah River Nuclear Solutions Tracy is Manager of the Tritium Projects and New Missions group at the Savannah River Site's Tritium Facilities in Aiken, SC. He is responsible for the upgrade of the facility control systems to DeltaV, utilization of the facilities already existing smart instrumentation (the old control system doesn’t do this), and managing the upgrade of the facility MES system, ARMS (Automated Reservoir Management System). Tracy has approximately 17 years of control system engineering experience having also worked at the H Canyon and the H Tank Farm Facility at the Savannah River Site. He received a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of South Carolina in 1992. Tracy lives in Olar, SC, with his wife Dawn and children Brittany, Nicholas, Andrew, and Mattie.