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


	Tracy Waller Savannah River Nuclear Solutions UDEP Chairman 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.

	Susan Flowers Shell Global Solutions UDEP Vice-Chair Susan Flowers is currently the Americas Measurement & Instrumentation Team Leader in Shell’s Projects & Technology PACO (Process Automation, Controls, and Optimisation) organization with a team of multi-discipline staff located in Houston and Calgary. In addition to her team leader responsibilities, she also serves as the Global Emerson Technical Focal Point for Shell. Susan began her career at Ciba-Geigy, later moving to Solutia and then finally to Shell. She has over 20 years of experience collectively in the chemical and refinery industries and has held a variety of positions ranging from scale-up of new products for customer trials from the R&D labs to pilot plants and/or toll manufacturing facilities to control engineering lead on major capital projects. In these roles, she has gained hands on experience with a variety of control systems including PROVOX and DeltaV. Susan completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees at the University of South Alabama, where she earned a M.S. in Chemical Engineering in the area of advanced process control. Susan lives with her husband and their two children in Katy, Texas.

	Darrell Bond Celanese Darrell is the Manufacturing Digitization Leader for Celanese and is located at the Clear Lake (Houston), Tx facility. He is responsible for Process Automation and MES major projects, as well as strategies globally. Darrell has over 25 years of chemical manufacturing experience in Production, Process Control & Automation, Quality Assurance and Warehousing & Shipping. He has been with Celanese since 1984 and received a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Houston in 1982. Darrell lives in Friendswood, Tx with his wife Donna and has two children, Pamela and Brett.

	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.

	Scott Harrington ConocoPhillips Scott is Instrument & Electrical Engineering Supervisor at ConocoPhillips' Billings Refinery in Billings, MT. His group is responsible for design, installation, and management of the refinery's control and safety instrumented systems, as well as for engineering design and construction of field instrumentation and electrical systems associated with capital projects. Scott has almost 30 years of instrumentation and control system experience with ConocoPhillips. He holds a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Arkansas, and a M.A. in Physics from Rice University. He lives in Billings, MT with his wife Teresa. His two sons, Grant and Todd, are post college-age, but not quite independent.

	Mark Irish MillerCoors Mark Irish P.E. has been with MillerCoors for 31 years in various automation engineering, management, and project capacities at several plant sites within MillerCoors. He is presently working in a Manufacturing Systems and Information Technology Management group in Golden Colorado. Mark has installed several large batch automation distributed process control systems including many DeltaV configurations, several continuous utility control systems and several MES projects. He is currently MillerCoors relationship manager for all Emerson Products (DeltaV, Instruments and Valves) and is involved in large DeltaV Automation projects within the MillerCoors manufacturing group. He is a member of IEEE, MBAA, and ISA professional organizations. He holds Bachelors of Science Degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Colorado, Brewing Science and Technology degree from the Siebel Institute of Technology and holds Professional Engineering licenses in the State of Colorado.

	Bob Keyser Merck

	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.

	Pat O’Donnell BP

	Kurt Russell Eli Lilly and Company 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.

	Stephen A. Russell, Ph.D Valero Dr. Russell is the Corporate Director of Automation and Process Control for Valero Energy Corporation in San Antonio, TX. His responsibilities include strategic direction and functional leadership for automation, standards and best practices development, technology stewardship, and major project support. Previously, Dr. Russell worked for DuPont in various advanced control, Six Sigma, and process control leadership positions after receiving his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering – Process Control from Auburn University.