Articles and News

With the new LabVIEW toolkit, more advanced MINDSTORMS NXT users, including adults, students and secondary school and university educators, now can program the NXT using advanced programming tools available in LabVIEW.

'Twas the night before Christmas and all though the site, no visitors were browsing, not even one byte.

ABB has been awarded a $3.9 million contract to supply System 800xA Extended Automation for Australian Paper's Maryvale mill in Victoria, Australia. In addition, ABB has secured more than $782,000 in orders for MV switchgear, LV relays, and variable drives systems.

Berend Bracht, former CEO of Bosch Rexroth China and former head of the company’s U.S. industrial hydraulics operation, will take over as president and chief executive officer effective January 1, 2007. Bracht replaces Wolfgang Dangel, who has led the U.S. subsidiary of the German-based company since April 2003. Dangel is leaving to accept a leadership position with the Schaeffler Group.

International Climbing Machines (ICM) uses igus products in its climbing apparatus that removes lead paint or chemical toxins from tall surfaces. ICM develops portable, remote-controlled devices capable of removing lethal materials on virtually any vertical or inverted surface.

This Joint-Venture, dedicated to the manufacturing, marketing and distribution of Low Voltage products, will be named Delixi Electric and incorporated in Wenzhou (Zhejiang Province) as soon as the conditions, precedent and regulatory approvals are satisfied. Schneider Electric will own a 50% interest in the company while Delixi Group will hold the other 50%.

Wavetrend appointed RC Group (Holdings) Limited (RCG ) as an Accredited Channel Partner for the Asia/Pacific region. RCG combines expertise in both biometric and RFID technologies to offer solutions that enhance security and increase convenience for enterprises and end-users alike.

Advantech's Data Acquisition I/O modules will be sold through the Cole-Parmer catalog.

The 5 day class will help skilled trades and engineers learn the fundamentals of operations, troubleshooting, error recovery, program touchup and safety procedures. The program is designed to help line builders and OEMs bring up automotive assembly lines and integrated cells and includes training on robot programming, PLC debugging, safety systems and setting up weld guns and other peripheral equipment.

Honeywell won the 2006 Pioneering Innovation Award at the Governor's Celebration of Innovation (GCOI) in Arizona. The award is presented each year to a company that has gone to great lengths in contributing to Arizona’s technology industry through sustained business presence, corporate citizenship, community involvement and business success.

Matrikon has acquired Industrial Control Software Limited (ICS), a private company based in Matlock, England. Established in 1989, ICS provides process control software and alarm monitoring and analysis solutions which are complementary to Matrikon's solutions. The purchase price was £1.78 million in cash for all outstanding shares of ICS. The net assets of ICS are estimated at £0.78 million.

PAN-STEEL Metal Embossing Hand Tool (MEHT) and Metal Indenting Machine (MIM) have been enhanced to provide durability and allow embossing or indenting of alphanumeric text onto aluminum or stainless steel marker plates, tags, tape and cable ties.

The full-day Industrial Ethernet Training Course covers: Networking Essentials; How Industrial Ethernet Is Different From Traditional Office Ethernet Networking; TCP/IP Tutorial; Comparison of Popular Ethernet Protocols including Ethernet/IP, Profibus, Modbus, etc.; Industrial Network Design and Hardware; Real-Time Ethernet; Achieving Deterministic Communications; and Best Practices When Implementing an Industrial Ethernet Network.

The Distributed Control System (DCS) market experienced the strongest growth in a decade between 2004 and 2005, increasing at a rate of close to 9%. This strong growth is expected to continue through 2010, with the global market increasing at an average annual rate of almost 7%, according to the new ARC Advisory Group study, “Distributed Control System (DCS) Worldwide Outlook”

ARC is predicting that the HMI software market is going to experience double or near double digit growth over the next two years, with growth slowing over the following three years. The HMI software services market is expected to grow faster than the total HMI Software market over the next five years.

A three-step migration program from Rockwell Automation helps manufacturers replace aging DCS systems with the Logix Control Platform. Phase one involves replacing legacy HMI consoles with FactoryTalk; in phase two, the legacy process controllers are replaced with Logix controllers; phase three involves removing the legacy I/O infrastructure and replacing it with the Logix 1756-based I/O platform.

“ABCs of the Internet Protocol” explains the IP (Internet Protocol) portion of the TCP/IP stack as it applies to control networks. This document defines TCP/IP and other topics including data encapsulation, routers and hosts, IP addressing and the IP header.

The Multi-Spectral Infrared (MSIR) FL4000 Flame Detector has been certified by Factory Mutual (FM) for application in hazardous environments. The FL4000 provides reliable flame monitoring with false alarm immunity, a wide field of view (FOV) and long range.

Honeywell has been awarded a $2.5 million contract from TonenGeneral Sekiyu to oversee the Wakayama Control House Consolidation Project – which will combine the oil refinery’s existing process control operations into one central location. Honeywell will also monitor three other subcontractors performing DCS relocation, civil, structural, electrical and instrumentation work.