As my Presidential term came to a close, I wanted to express how much I enjoyed serving the ISA community in 2023. Having been elected by the membership to lead and influence the direction of the Society was a tremendously humbling honor. My sincere thanks go out to Claire Fallon, our Executive Director, as well as her staff, for the continuous work of keeping the Society operational and for executing the Society's strategic planning.
Equally important are the countless volunteers who provide their time to manage the many sections, divisions, standards, and committees of the Society, as well as share their expertise to benefit the automation industry. Many thanks also go out to 2022 President Carlos Mandolesi, and 2024 President-elect Prabhu Soundarrajan, as well as our Treasurer Steve Mustard, and the entire Executive Board, for their support.
The Executive Board has the imperative role of leading and looking ahead to the future success of the Society. Imagining where the Society might be in the years ahead and then developing a strategic plan is a challenging role, and we’re proud that our members can rest assured knowing the Executive Board has the best interests of the Society foremost in mind.
2023 Strategy, Objectives and Key Results
While the results for 2023 won’t be available for a few more weeks, I’m pleased to highlight that we’ve seen considerable progress on several fronts. ISA ended 2023 recording another year of remarkable membership growth. The focus on member value and the continuing work by our professional staff, the Society has added and significantly improved the value of ISA membership. With more than 100 sections worldwide, ISA is proud to have recently welcomed several new sections including Denmark, Bahrain and Taiwan.
I was fortunate to attend and speak at four conferences in 2023, where I met the members and volunteers of 13 sections. Their warm welcome will be a long-held highlight of my year. Specifically, I met many leaders at our Automation & Leadership Conference, in Colorado Springs, USA and our OT Cybersecurity Summit in Aberdeen, Scotland. The passion and energy that members and volunteers have for our professional society is significant and plays a large role in the global success of ISA.
Our financials have improved the last two years fueled by strong demand for ISA’s first-class training and certification programs. Always important to our long-term success, our Executive Director and the staff are to be congratulated on managing our operations and finances and expanding our revenue while focusing on our strategic goals.
2023 OT Cybersecurity Summit in Aberdeen, Scotland
ISA successfully held two major international events in 2023, including the OT Cybersecurity Summit with 150+ attendees in Aberdeen, Scotland. The OT Cybersecurity Summit was ISA’s first in-person international event in many years, helping ISA spread the message on our standards, training, certification and membership opportunities.
The conference can be credited in aiding 6 sections in starting the processes to be formed, 2 of which have already completed the process. ISA plans on expanding the conference in 2024. Learn more and register today at www.isa.org/otcyber. This year, the OT Cybersecurity conference will be in London on 18-19 June 2024. It will have 2 tracks covering IOT cybersecurity and threat evolution, will go over the 3-2 updates to the ISA/IEC 62443 standard series, and host the ever-popular IC 32 and IC 33 training classes. Don’t miss the opportunity to get involved at ISA!
2023 Automation & Leadership Conference
The 2023 ALC in Colorado Springs was a tremendous success, and featured a conference with 200+ attendees, sold out IC 32 training, plus volunteer and standard committee meetings. A huge thank you to our sponsors and expo vendors for supporting ALC! Look for an exciting announcement soon to come about our 2024 event in Charleston on 30 September– 3 October and check out the 2023 recap here.
Corporate Engagement
The Society is increasing its reach to corporations to understand the value that the ISA Society can bring to their employees and their operations. Media coverage and editorial placements increased substantially over the prior year, increasing ISA’s exposure.
ISA’s reach and OT cybersecurity solutions are extended through its international consortia and acceptance of our consensus-based standards around the world. For more information, check out:
- ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance —50+ member companies working to secure critical infrastructure through reliance on the ISA/IEC 62443 series of standards
- ISA SecureISASecure—delivering market leading OT cybersecurity certifications, including an all-new conformity assessment scheme for automation systems deployed at operating sites
- ISA100 Wireless Institute—a single plant-wide independent and cybersecure wireless platform
Position Papers—Thought Leadership
Who speaks for ISA? What are positions that the Society takes on topics? Understanding where automation fits, what solutions automation brings, and who to ask for advice can lead to creating a better world through automation. ISA Position Papers are vetted and provide a clear statement on automation subjects from an acknowledged and unbiased international leader in automation. The following are a few impressive examples that we’re proud of:
- Automation is Critical to Achieving Global Energy Goals
- Automation Drives the Global Quest for Resilient Supply Chain
- Automation Depends on People to Make the World a Better Place
- Achieving Sustainability Goals with Automation
- Advancing Industrial Cybersecurity
Standards
The Society has created 130+ standards, and many volunteers continue to improve and shape future automation standards. The ISA SCADA 112 standards committee is actively developing a series of ISA standards and technical reports for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) system. Get involved with ISA Standards to help develop consensus industry standards on automation. Two newly published standards or technical reports are:
- ANSI/ISA-106.00.01-2023, Procedure Automation for Continuous Process Operations,
- ISA-TR5.9-2023, Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) Algorithms and Performance,
New Member Services
2023 saw the introduction of:
- Volunteer Leadership Workshops at the Scotland OT Cybersecurity Summit and ALC
- ISA Business Academy—a mini-MBA for automation industry leaders
- PubHub—a centralized member only wealth of technical content
- An ISA Mentor program for Young Professionals
For the latest in membership information and new announcements, check out the Member Source. ISA Connect will help you find your division, young professional, student or Society activity, as well as refer to the member technical discussion forums on any technical topic.
The Awards and Honors portal is open until 31 March 2024
At the Automation & Leadership Conference (ALC) in Colorado Springs, ISA recognized its 2023 Celebrating Excellence Awardees. The Honors and Awards nominations are now open—please consider recognizing your peers!
Code of Conduct and Professionalism
ISA’s Conduct and Anti-Harassment Policies as well as the Member/Leader Code of Conduct encourages members to exhibit the highest standards of competency, honesty, integrity and impartiality. Members accept the personal responsibility for adhering to applicable laws and safeguarding the public welfare in their professional actions and behavior. ISA values excellence, integrity, diversity, equity and inclusion, collaboration, and professionalism. All members commit to upholding the principles and behaviors by joining and retaining membership in ISA.
With 14,000+ members and countless valued leaders in varies regions, ISA strives for common success. Should any member wish to discuss the direction of the Society, please feel free to reach out to the President.
While my term has come to a close, I want to extend my heartfelt congratulations to our 2024 President, Prabhu Soundarrajan, from whom you will be getting this update throughout the year to come. Prabhu, congratulations and thank you for all you do for ISA.
Share your Love of Automation: Recommend ISA to a Colleague
Finally, while it would be the standard closing to relate how honored and humbled, I was to serve as your president for 2023, I would prefer to focus on the value of your Society and encourage you to share your professional association with a colleague. ISA is your professional Society. Someone invited me—someone may have invited you. Extend a hand and be that mentor or professional colleague that betters a life by sharing ISA’s resources and help create a better world through automation.
