Articles and News

The production line has a yearly capacity of 400 megawatts of solar inverters.

PMMI's Mechatronics Certificate program has been added to The Manufacturing Institute's Manufacturing Skills Certification Systems offerings.

The ZigBee Alliance completed development and ratified the ZigBee Building Automation standard.

College internships are extremely beneficial on the path to a career in industrial automation and manufacturing.

ARM Automation developed this ultra high precision, EtherCAT-enabled robot for bowling equipment testing. The United States Bowling Congress uses E.A.R.L to help uphold the game's credibility, preserve its future and enhance the bowling experience for millions.

IEEE ratifies widely anticipated standard providing alternative approaches and best practices for Smart Grid work in India and around the world.

FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communication Foundation, PROFIBUS & PROFINET International and OPC Foundation founded FDI to establish an organization to manage device integration.

Norm Gilsdorf has been given the Outstanding Chemical Engineer Award from Purdue.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor In Part 2 of my interview with Eric Byres, leading industrial automation cyber security expert, he expands on the challenges and solutions for industrial cyber security, and includes recommendations for actions to take to protect your company and assets.

Honeywell will deploy its Experion Process Knowledge System and Safety Manager emergency shutdown and boiler protection system at a Fortum waste-to-energy facility in Klaipeda, Lithuania.

The single acting, spring-return rack and pinion actuator will operate a 16 inch ANSI Class 900 ball valve installed on the eleven kilometre export pipeline from the Seth Platform.

This year two hospitals will share $40,000 in Siemens products and services.

The manual provides building owners a comprehensive resource for reducing the use of energy, water, and toxic chemicals and for operating facilities in a more sustainable, healthy manner.

Support Connect enables administration, predictive maintenance and remediation of remotely managed assets without an upfront investment in data center hardware.

Hamburger Pitten, a producer of containerboard, upgraded its production line with two Honeywell Experion MX Quality Control Systems (QCS) systems, which will be used to improve product quality.

The office building and factory house 800 automation professionals. Production is working in two shifts on a record pace.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Benjamin Smith, Hidden Falls Hatchery PLCs from AutomationDirect provide a fully functional automation and alarm system to monitor the processes vital to keeping fish alive and healthy at this hatchery in Alaska.

Ice Cream Castles in the Land of Automation

Viewpoint on ISA TR84.0.02 Simplified Methods and Fault Tree Analysis

ARC says India needs to augment its existing generation capacity by around 600,000 – 700,000 MW in the next 15 years to satisfy growing demand for electric power.

Zacmi selected eWON’s Talk2M Pro service, in combination with eWON 2005CD hardware modules for its remote access needs.

Located in Uruguay’s southern state of Colonia, the $1.9-billion facility will produce 1.3 million tons of plantation-based pulp annually once it becomes operational in the first half of 2013.

Klustner’s prior executive positions include serving Verdiem Corporation as president and CEO, when the green IT company rose to national prominence in the energy software market.

The project aims to demonstrate the reliability, efficiency and cost benefits of a smarter grid to cooperative members.

Over the 15-year contract period, work by Siemens should reduce electricity consumption by county buildings by 37 million kWh.

Yaskawa America manufactured its one millionth inverter in the United States.

Salamander Energy will install AVEVA WorkMate Enterprise Asset Management solution across all of its process plants in Indonesia and Thailand.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bejer Any manufacturer of complex machines that include HMIs must face a crucial decision: should you build your own human-machine interfaces or should you buy these ready-made?

Microchip delivered its 10 billionth microcontroller, the 32-bit PIC32MX340F256, approximately 10 months after delivering its nine billionth.

AMT will acquire Time Compression and Process Cleaning magazines from Gardner Publications.

HEIDENHAIN donated a 1980s Bridgeport 9x48 Series One mill and a new Acu-Rite MILLPWR 3 control to the museum in Windsor, VT.

Metso's control system helped the Järvenpää Pilot Coater reach a new world record speed of 3,160 m/min.

The alpha gearbox fulfilled application high speed requirements by improving throughput without risking gear reducer failure.

Automation.com, September 2011 By William Gilbert, Siemens Today’s AC drive systems now have the technology to regenerate energy back to the AC line--a practical alternative to mechanical braking and non-regen drives in converting, packaging, wireforming and printing industries

ISA Honors Outstanding Achievements

The Power of Networking: Jobs, Business, Even Fun

Toy Story Midway Mania! is one of the most technologically sophisticated attractions yet developed by Walt Disney Imagineering. It marks the company's first use of industrial Ethernet for a ride's control system which takes advantage of Siemens products.

The Rotork actuators replaced obsolete hydraulic actuators and power packs that were requiring increased levels of costly and time consuming maintenance.

Capable of generating 20kW for WAGO’s engineering, manufacturing and sales hub, wind power will meet approximately 10% of WAGO manufacturing needs.

ERP provides recipe management, purchasing, production scheduling, inventory and lot control, order entry, warehouse management, accounting, and reporting.

PcVue constantly monitors and enables the operator to adjust the exact amount of raw materials needed to make each paint batch perfect.

Linear Relationships for 4-20 mA transmitters

In order to provide the safety function the system must continue to operate correctly under all foreseeable conditions. So how do we design a system to achieve this, and when we have done that, how do we show it?

Ron Hefley, Ed Perek and Dan Ryan were promoted to Partner.

OMS avoided any pipe fit-up problems, providing Subsea 7 with fast, good pipe fit-ups ready for the welding stage.

ABB will supply automation and power equipment and related engineering and commissioning services to JK Paper Ltd for its expansion project.

A DeltaV system and AMS software will automate Hanwha Chemical’s biotechnology process and support the compliance requirements for FDA approval.

The partner program will allow systems integrators to resell QA Graphics’ products and services.

Two companies joined the Rockwell Automation Encompass program in the Americas region, while an additional three companies have been named global partners.

Linear MOTIONEERING sizing and selection tool simplifies machine design by quickly identifying the best ball and lead screw options for application requirements.

Virtualization simplifies computer maintenance and delivers high performance

DeMasie has over 25 years of technology and industry experience, and joins Flow-Cal from SunGard Energy and Commodities.

Certification of the Mechatrolink field network for safety makes it possible for MMA members to build motion control and machine control systems for use in applications that comply with safety standards.

Ore hoisting system will support the transformation of Ernest Henry Mining's open pit mine into an underground mining operation.

The 2011-12 Engineer of the Future Scholarship program will challenge Houston’s high school seniors to offer ideas for making industrial manufacturing facilities more energy efficient.

The boiler is for a biomass-fueled cogeneration power plant at the Domtar Mill in Rothschild, Wisconsin, USA.

The VPS Partners program seeks System Integrators to deliver industrial automation solutions to the process industry.

LTM has exclusive rights for the promotion and sale of the ADAM AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robot) products and solutions within India.

Safety Services Business Unit offers consulting assistance to assess risks and validate proposed solutions for industrial automation applications.

The AS3992 powers the Nordic ID NUR-05W reader, one of the the smallest UHF RFID mass reading Windows CE devices on the market.

Sonoda will reside in Japan and provide training, functional safety management and other key services to Japanese manufacturers.

The analyzer with 7 sample points in the ECF fiberline will measure pulp lignin content and brightness as well as shive content for improved process optimization and quality control.

The monarch SCADA/EMS system will replace an existing Siemens system implemented in the late 1990s at the electric utility in South Carolina.

The contest challenges students in middle school, high school and technical school to design an original control system using Phoenix Contact’s Nanoline controller.

RuggedCom will supply broadband wireless base stations and subscriber units to ENPPDC, making data collection and remote monitoring over large distances possible.

The plant, which was previously operated manually, includes 12 reactors ranging in size from 2,000 to 10,000 gallons.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Bill Lydon talks with Jeff Kodosky, Cofounder of National Instruments and Father of LabVIEW, to discuss real-time control and particularly his continuing work on the problem of visually programming real-time- control applications.

Prior to joining ARC, Peter served as the Strategic Planning Manager for Automation and IT at Irving Oil in Saint John, New Brunswick

Automation.com, September 2011 By Chris Bowman, TR Electronic Like any industrial communications, there are advantages and disadvantages to using EtherNet/IP. Informing oneself of the limitations will help you to determine if EtherNet/IP is the right way for your installation.

July U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $506.97 million, up 7.3% from June and up 92.7% when compared with the total of $263.14 million reported for July 2010.

IEEE introduced two new standards, IEEE 1701 and IEEE 1702, to create a multi source plug and play communications environment for smart metering devices in India.

The market is expected to reach more than $1.5 billion in 2015, according to ARC.

The HG+ gearbox used in this application aids in precise motion, but it had to be nickle-plated to survive.

Harris Caprock will use Paradox Engineering’s PE.WSNi wireless sensor network for industrial data acquisition.

Evaluation Question

PBC Linear's Integral-V linear guide system reduces mounting components, improves alignment and provide ease of installation across scalable working lengths.

Nexen will supply Roller Pinion Systems to Flow International for Flow’s new line of waterjet machines.

Study says 40% of managers, senior managers and engineers in the global oil & gas industry don’t know where to find safety information.

172-page catalog covers acceleration, acoustic, force, pressure, shock and vibration sensors.

JSC KUZNETSOV will use PLM-technologies for a new line of gas turbine engines with high energy efficiency.

CIMdata formed a business practice focused on the growing needs of PLM organizations for comprehensive non-biased PLM education.

Target is a motion control distributor in the New England trading area.

Endress+Hauser's Dutch sales center moved into a new building in Naarden, which cost just under eight million euros.

Menderes' most recent position was Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing for the ESI-Group.

Connexx Energy has standardized on the Niagara platform from Tridium.

This growth is more than 80 percent over last year’s 187 ZigBee Certified products.

Joann Byres and Eric Byres will continue to manage Byres Security, which will run as an independent business unit under Belden, and the Tofino Security brand will remain the same.

ProSoft Technology has exclusive sales rights for all of the WRC network communication products that are centered on DeviceNet communications technologies.

Schneider Electric purchased all of the issued shares of Telvent for $40.00 per share.

Instrumentation and Control Systems Documentation: Two generations of knowledge

DENSO increased the number of robot service engineers in its service centers in Maryville, Tenn., and Long Beach, Calif.

Smith is responsible for all sales, marketing, and operating activities within SICK’s factory, logistics and process automation business segments in Canada.

ISA Announces Energy Track at ISA Automation Week 2011

ARC says the high power AC drives market will experience strong growth through 2015.

Online training course covers all the programming techniques in Siemens Simatic WinCC Flexible software.

ABB will supply two converter transformers, one excitation transformer, an MV frequency converter and one synchronous motor.

Livestream Schedule: Marketing & Sales Summit

EE Technologies installed Aegis’ Manufacturing Operations Software (MOS) to translate engineering designs into manufacturing documentation.

FH Tank Storage AB is using Emerson’s Rosemount wireless level and pressure transmitters to provide overspill protection at its Kalmar storage terminal on the east coast of Sweden.

Automation.com, August 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Cyber Security is a hot topic that has become more intense since the notoriety of the Stuxnet virus. I interviewed Eric Byres, one of world’s leading industrial automation cyber security experts, to gain a greater understanding of the challenges and solutions for industrial cyber security.