The International Society of Automation (ISA) announces the co-location of seven events throughout the week at ISA EXPO 2009, held Oct. 6-8 at the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas. Co-locating organizations include ARC Advisory Group, Industry2Grid (I2G), MCAA, OpenO&M, Microsoft and the Microsoft Manufacturing User Group (MSMUG), Houston SmartPlant Instrumentation (LTUF), and WBF. The co-location of these events with the ISA Fall Training Institute, Industry Standards Forum, six technical conferences, and the exhibition brings technical content, professional development, and networking opportunities to attendees, according to ISA. Details about each co-located event follow. ARC Advisory Group will host an Asset Lifecycle Management (ALM) Knowledge Exchange and Technology Showcase that includes a series of educational workshops and presentations by ARC analysts, end users, and technology suppliers. Topics will cover recent ALM developments and best practices that enable asset-intensive organizations to reduce risk, reduce costs, reduce downtime, reduce energy use, and reduce the carbon footprint of complex capital facilities. The Committee of the National Institute of Standards and Technology industry2Grid (I2G) Summit will provide an overview of NIST and I2G SmartGrid activities as well as a forum for identifying and discussing issues of importance to industry.The Measurement, Control & Automation Association (MCAA), the industry’s trade association, will hold an Industry Breakfast. Jeff Dietrich, senior analyst with the Institute for Trend Research, will update MCAA members on the economy and the business cycles of the key customer industries for MCAA products. Additionally, Paul Rasmusson and Mike Willey, principals of Global Foresight Group, will provide a mid-year update to their 2009-2011 market forecast, which is prepared exclusively for MCAA members.The OpenO&M demonstration is a collaborative effort with POSC Caesar, FIATECH and key ISO Working Groups, as well as solutions suppliers. Rather than having isolated islands of activity linked by unsustainable proprietary integration solutions, the suppliers of all major classes of industrial systems are now adopting open standards based interfaces providing the needed levels of sustainable interoperability. OpenO&M will also conduct an Executive Summit for those with strategic accountability for plant and platform performance. This summit is designed to help management understand the business value of ISA membership and ISA standards activities through an executive level discussion and private demonstration of the next generation of open standards-enabled plant and platform management solutions.Microsoft and the Microsoft Manufacturing User Group will hold their annual Worldwide Manufacturing Operations Forum. Microsoft will present its role and strategy in manufacturing operations, an updated roadmap of its key products and technologies, as well as the broader strategy to secure and manage IT assets in this area. The forum will also address how software enhances role-based productivity allowing for better collaboration and availability of information, and leading to faster and better decision making.The Houston SmartPlant Instrumentation (LTUF), a group of Intergraph's SmartPlant Instrumentation Automation Software users, will hold its fall meeting at ISA EXPO this year. LTUF is a group of professionals who are joined by a common interest in applying products to the field of instrumentation automation, engineering, design, drafting, and maintenance. “The LTUF chose ISA EXPO as a vehicle to host the LTUF Quarterly Instrumentation Automation Forum because of the leading edge instrument technology it offers that coincide with our focus in industry,” said John Dressel, Houston SPI LTUF Chair. WBF, the Organization for Production Technology, will offer two seminars: Non-Stop 88 - Applying Batch Methods to Continuous and Discrete Processes and "Getting Real" with ISA-95 and B2MML: Implementation Case Studies. Dennis Brandl will conduct the two seminars, during which he will discuss real world examples of applying standards he has helped develop. For more information about ISA EXPO 2009, visit www.isa.org/expo.