Articles and News

By Morteza Seraj, Mitsubishi Electric’ Efficient control hardware combined with the management and optimization offered by virtual power plants provides an opportunity to meet that challenge today. This article provides a practical overview of how virtual power plants can provide the answer.

Volume X is the result of a full year of research, and displays in one glance a comparison of the revenues, units sold, and compound annual growth rate for all the main types of flowmeters. No other study exists that provides this type of all-in-one view of the flowmeter market.

With Parsable’s Connected Worker Platform, Honeywell is gaining visibility into the human-led work done across its manufacturing operations, capturing critical data insights to drive continuous improvement.

BASF will implement Emerson’s hybrid automation solution that replaces existing programmable logic controllers (PLCs), used to control 20 reactors, with Emerson’s DeltaV PK Controller.

BASF will implement Emerson’s hybrid automation solution that replaces existing programmable logic controllers (PLCs), used to control 20 reactors, with Emerson’s DeltaV PK Controller.

Covestro chose AVEVA’s SimCentral Simulation Platform as a single solution to replace legacy systems across the plant lifecycle.

ICONICS’ software products are used for SCADA, HMI, IoT, mobile, analytics and cloud applications. The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval and other customary closing conditions.

Computers and artificial intelligence may radcially change the field of engineering and process industry applications..

By Bill Lydon, Automation.com Cyber threats continue to be a prominent concern as the digitalization movement grows ever larger. Siemens and TÜV SÜD are partnering to try and counter these concerns.

By Boris Wassmer, CIRCOR Brushless DC technology is making electric actuators more efficient, more adaptable, and more connected—and changing expectations for what an actuator can do.

Under the terms of this partnership between Sepro and UR, Sepro Group will integrate its Visual Control System with cobots supplied by UR.

Limit switch is a general term to describe the class of devices that are used to detect the end of travel of a valve, louver, or any other item that may be in motion.

By Michael Schuldenfrei, OptimalPlus Big Data Analytics (BDA) tools have changed how organizations everywhere do business, and they are already saving many electronics manufacturers millions of dollars today.

On Wednesday, May 1, during the Association’s Industry Forum in Tucson, AZ, the distinguished achievement award was presented to Ken Hoffer, Chief Executive Officer of Hoffer Flow Controls, Inc.

Headquartered in Oxnard, CA USA, Sensortech joins KPM as provider of real-time moisture measurement and solutions that automates quality control. Sensortech further expands KPM’s core NIR technology portfolio while adding RF to KPM’s technology mix.

He succeeds Rüdiger Schlierenkämper who has worked for Werum in managerial positions since 2000 and will retire at the end of June 2019.

The European Union´s recent sales numbers are still positive - up 12 percent. This is according to the preliminary results of the World Robotics Report 2019, published by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR).

Offering flow and test solutions to international markets, Sierra Instruments is comprised of two divisions: FLOW, headquartered in Monterey, California and AUTO, headquartered in Malvern, United Kingdom.

Approximately 800 employees, who are currently spread over three separate locations in Extertal, will work at the facility when the final phase is completed.

SymphonyAI is building a group of companies that use artificial intelligence to transform business enterprises across several markets, including the industrial, retail, consumer, healthcare, financial services, and media sectors.

MPC for batch operations can be achieved by translation of controlled variable from batch temperature or composition with a unidirectional response to the slope of the batch profile.

The addition of Keynetix software is intended to expand Bentley’s geotechnical offerings and accelerate Bentley’s vision of enabling subsurface digital twins for infrastructure projects and assets.

Sightline Process Control is a company specializing in 3D color vision and automated inspection systems for the food production process.

By Rick Peters, Fortinet Increasingly, the most effective way to disrupt the world’s critical transportation infrastructure is by targeting the OT network, and more specifically, those IT devices and systems that have been converged into a traditionally isolated OT environment.

Engineers develop a proportional integral estimator-based protocol to achieve clock synchronization for wireless sensor networks.

The PartnerNetwork program allows companies to face automation challenges together by providing access to a network of suppliers, distributors, system integrators and OEMs.

The ARCHx system is comprised of the operating engine and several knowledge base plug-ins for specific technologies. The tool is used to guide architecture design reviews, both during the initial architecture design, when the basic design decisions are being made, but also for existing designs.

There are now two ways for visitors to find products. The Products page provides an alphabetized list for current customers to find products they are familiar with while the Catalog page groups products by type and displays multiple related products and models with readily viewable details on every page.

The acquisition of Karnasch marks a milestone for ATA and the first since the 2016 management buyout of its private equity partners. The acquisition increases the worldwide workforce to nearly four hundred staff of whom approximately one hundred and fifty are based in Ireland.

The ergonomic design of tow tractors is beneficial to workers. With the help of tow trucks, people can move heavy carts without strain. Workers no longer experience the same fatigue they get from using forklifts.

While its first facility serves as its showroom, the Xperience Center, Paxiom Automation will be dedicated to systems integration, project management and customer service for its manufacturing brands WeighPack Systems, EndFlex, CombiScale and ValTara.

RFID tags consist of silicon chips and an antenna that can transmit data to a wireless receiver.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation The rapid pace of change in North American manufacturing is causing a dramatic increase in the servitization of products. The reason for this spike? Sensors.

The three-year collaboration combines the power applications and networking capabilities of Emerson’s Ovation automation platform with Vayu’s cloud-computing wind energy optimization technology.

The installed ABB technology will generate enough power to cover on sunny days 100 percent of the factories` power requirements.

As an independent supplier of solutions for industrial communication and the Industrial Internet of Things, HMS has an insight into the industrial network market. Here are some of the trends they see within industrial communication in 2019.

The development means that the HARTING Quality and Technology Center (HQT) will be able to test inter-car cables under realistic conditions in the future.

The integration between Skybox and Indegy is intended to provide customers with visibility of their IT and OT networks. The combination of Indegy’s passive and active data collection from the OT network is relayed to Skybox where OT assets, services and vulnerabilities are modeled alongside those from the IT environment.

The competition involved 56 students from 20 universities in North America remotely using AVEVA’s industrial simulation software platform, SimCentral, to solve a challenge: design, optimize and operate a process to produce dimethyl ether—a gas that can be used as automotive fuel—for electric power generation and in domestic applications such as heating and cooking.

There are four methods of heat transfer in most industrial pipeline situations. Each involves significantly different methodology and calculations.

By Bill Lydon, Automation.com Suppliers either adapt with technology, or they lose customers and die. This is true in every industry. The industrial and process automation industries will be no exception.

The white paper focuses on three main communication challenges: complexity, security, and expense. IIoT and other data-intensive automation applications typically require many steps and a lot of middleware: hardware, drivers, parsers, and custom software.

The union with TRIMAX is intended to provide opportunities for TESCO to increase its water/wastewater market share in Southern California and gain entry to additional industries served by TRIMAX.

Elena Tanzola has resigned as a director and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer. The Company thanks her for her contributions and service.

Emerson’s cloud engineering services enabled global project personnel to remotely collaborate on design, development and testing in a common virtualized environment. This allowed project changes and testing to be managed efficiently and remotely.

In this role, Mr. Gandhe will work across Dana, including the company's business units, functional teams, and joint-venture partners, to accelerate strategic growth.

Elena Tanzola has resigned as a director and Interim President and Chief Executive Officer. The Company thanks her for her contributions and service.

A practical way to achieve sustainable benefits with the proper application of ISA standards during the system design phase of an industrial automation project..

Under the banner “Answers 4.0”, Rittal is appearing at “The smarter E Europe” fair to demonstrate digital technologies. Rittal offers solutions and products that enable panel building and switchgear manufacturers to lay the foundations for gradually forming a digital value chain.

As part of this collaboration, Nikon Metrology NV will distribute Pixelink cameras as stand-alone solutions or integrated with Nikon NIS-Elements Microscope Imaging Software.

In this role, Mr. Jones will be responsible for leading the company’s operational strategy, project management, supplier management- both domestic and international, and management of internal teams to ensure consistent client delivery.

Operating instructions may be included in a functional specification or operating description and may range from a few pages describing how to operate one part of a plant to a complete set of directio

The scalable, enterprise-level midstream logistics management solution based on Emerson’s TerminalManager software and DeltaV distributed control system (DCS) is working to help the terminal achieve its goals

By Chinaecherem Omenyinma, Videojet Technologies Helping manufacturers to meet regulatory requirements and to provide a means of traceability, commercial printers can be an important part of production. However, when competing with other priorities on the production floor, they don’t always rank high on the list.

The original founders remain shareholders, but no longer hold any operational roles within the company, and upon the completion of the legal procedures, complete the transition of the Board.

The acquisition includes two technologies: Multivariate Optical Elements for spectroscopic chemical analysis and Nanopatterning Tools known as MagAssemble, which were originally developed by MagAssemble, LLC and are used to “3D print” photolithography masks using nanoparticles.

The nuSIM initiative takes a fundamentally new approach to IoT system design by moving the subscriber identity module’s (SIM) functionality to the cellular chipset.

Cyber Shield 19—held 5-18 April 2019 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana—brought together approximately 800 Army and Air National Guard network defenders and world-class cybersecurity professionals, industry network owners, an Army Reserve assessment team, and federal and state agencies to train the next generation of cyber warriors in the ever-changing, dynamic world of information systems and networks.

By Jack Wilson, Optimum Consultancy Services RPA allows a robot to observe human-initiated actions between multiple data sources and technologies on a User Interface, memorize the actions and corresponding sequences, and replicate.

Winners of this global competition will be provided with up to $175,000 in financial assistance and the opportunity to collaborate with experts from Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs to help grow their businesses and unleash new levels of productivity for the industrial and public sectors.

In February 2018, Telit announced the LM960, a Gigabit mPCIe adapter card supporting LTE Advanced Pro Category 18. Featuring download speeds of up to 1.2Gbps and global coverage, the LM960 also supports CBRS - band 48.

The OPC UA server can be hosted in the controller itself because of platform-independent OPC UA server specifications.

This course allows students to achieve the exida Alarm Management Practitioner (AMP) certification, while learning at their own pace.

The International Federation of Robotics represents more than 50 manufacturers of industrial robots and national robot associations from over twenty countries and was founded in 1987 as a non-profit organization.

At Automate, A3 also announced the date and location for Automate 2021. It takes place May 17-20 at Detroit’s Cobo Center.

Illuminating the theme of ‘Integrated Industry - Industrial Intelligence, the 2019 Hannover Messe, hosted 6,500 exhibitors from 75 countries and 215,000 attendees from 95 nations. The event, which featured Sweden as the partner country, hosted over 80 forums and conferences which highlighted many new digitalization trends and technologies.

ISA certification holders have demonstrated higher levels of technical competence. They earn more than others and have greater employment opportunities.

All ONICON Measurement Solutions business units (ONICON, Air Monitor, Fox Thermal, Seametrics, Greyline and Pulsar Process Measurement) are included in this transaction.

The 300-ton vessel, which is 38 meters long and can hold up to 200 passengers, will offer more than 700 cruises per year, with each cruise featuring a two-hour journey through Paris.

By Jalal Bouhdada, Applied Risk This article discusses why manufacturers must understand the critical nature of designing devices with security in mind.

At Senseye, Peter will be responsible for managing relationships with key customers in France and finding opportunities across the region with large-scale organizations in sectors such as automotive, energy and heavy industry.

Flow pattern recognition is necessary to select design equations for finding operating details of the process and to perform computational simulations.

The solution is designed to improve manufacturing spans, quality and compliance by giving plant managers complete visibility into their product production and offer efficiency and continuous improvement through data capture and analysis.

By Robert Cohn, Direct Recruiters, Inc. You don’t have to be an e-commerce company in need of 3,000 customer service agents to benefit from a telecommuting program. From internet retail to manufacturing, all companies can benefit from a more flexible workforce, lower overhead, and an increased talent pool.

The European research project "LAMPAS" is working on the world record of fabrication throughput for the production of functionalized surfaces in the domestic appliance market by combining the outstanding characteristics of three laser technologies, being High-Average-Power Ultrafast Lasers, Direct Laser Interference Patterning and Polygon Scanner processing.

The solution is designed to improve manufacturing spans, quality and compliance by giving plant managers complete visibility into their product production and offer efficiency and continuous improvement through data capture and analysis.

A thermocouple is comprised of two wires of dissimilar metals, connected at one end, which is placed in the process to be measured. This is called the measuring junction.

An appeals panel formed by Underwriters Laboratories has ruled in favor of the International Society of Automation (ISA) in an appeal against UL 2900-2-2, Standard for Software Cybersecurity for Network-Connectable Devices,

Bassett replaces Bill Lydon, who will continue with the publications as Contributing Editor. In her role, Bassett will work with Zabel to determine publication and content strategy, develop content and manage the publications’ contributors, staff and production processes.

With telecommunications company KRIS-Service, responsible for the development and implementation of system of facility remote monitoring (SFRM), the solution was designed to automate oil production processes and reduce illegal oil turnover.

By Paul Streatfield, Bosch Rexroth This article explores four of the most recent key criteria for industrial drive specification, which meet the challenges of today’s industrial requirements.

The acquisition is expected to be executed by the end of 2019, subject to the satisfaction of certain regulatory and other customary closing conditions.

Industry association partners include, CSIA (Control System Integrators Association), ISA (International Society of Automation) and MESA (Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association) International.

Cavitation is the bane of the industrial valve designer & valve user alike. It causes severe damage to valve trim & creates sound levels exceeding 110 dB.

By Lee Sullivan, COPA-DATA UK According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders, automotive manufacturing fell by 11 per cent last summer. Among the reasons cited for this decrease was growing demand for customization

This white paper examines pneumatic design best practices and presents four basic pneumatic circuits commonly used in machine automation.

The financial situation of the average automation engineer got a nice boost in 2018. With the need for experienced professionals still growing, we anticipate the demand to remain strong for engineers for the foreseeable future, with a great deal of opportunity for young graduates and those who are interested in a STEM career.

Making smart, strategic decisions is linked to the ability to define the needs of the business or application, your goals, and the purpose, and finally to execute based on those criteria.

Superior Controls Co-founder and President Rick Pierro will continue as president of Superior Controls’ life sciences solutions vertical, reporting to ETech CEO Ralph Carter, and will also join the ETech board. Superior Controls will retain its name and maintain the company’s focus in serving the life sciences industry.

By Kinichi Kitano, Yokogawa When a network device vendor promises security, what does it mean? Understanding how security works and what each vendor is actually providing can make a major difference.

To keep operations at the site in Ribe smooth and efficient, DTE needed a communication network technology able to connect the inverters to PLCs and ensure that the machines could instantly adjust their parameters for optimal performance.

With 20 years of first-hand knowledge in developing public safety products for the U.S market, he will be directly overseeing a team of engineers working on the public safety DAS, commercial wireless and Wi-Fi Distributed Antenna Systems.

Data integrity implies that the data received is the same (value, format, quality) as the data sent.

By Jack Wilson, Optimum Consultancy Services Business Process Automation (BPA) is no longer a new concept. In some sectors, it has become so accepted as to be expected. Those who are not utilizing BPA are looked upon as lagging behind the pack, while those with BPA implemented throughout all layers of their organization are reaping the benefits.

This location allows Radiant to provide local support to its automotive customer base, with direct resources to enable measurement solutions development for displays, lighting, head-up displays (HUD), and a range of automated visual inspection applications.

For manufacturers, the stakes have never been higher. Under FSMA regulations, failure to implement an effective supply chain risk management program could subject food companies and their officers to significant liability and even criminal charges.

In her role, Grant is responsible for supplier diversity strategic planning and diversity sourcing and procurement. Since joining the company in 2016, Grant has increased diverse supplier spend year over year and expandedthe company’s classifications of diverse suppliers to include LGBTQ suppliers.

Bio-G’s scheduling and modeling systems combined with Emerson’s life sciences technology and expertise portfolio will help companies bring therapies for cancer, diabetes and other illnesses to patients sooner.

The Board of Directors of ABB and its CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer (55) have mutually agreed for him to step down from his role, which he has held since 2013.