Articles and News

The Foxboro unit of Invensys Process Systems has announced that a control center at the Potomac River Generating Station, in Alexandria, Virginia, won a control room “makeover,” valued up to $350,000, following a nationwide campaign. The 482-megawatt, five-unit facility is owned by Mirant and serves customers in Washington, D.C.

The development partnership will involve the integration of Pertinence's Rules Maker and Operations Advisor business intelligence products into Apriso's FlexNet® operations execution platform. The combined solution will provide customers with a new tool for capturing data and learning best practices from product and process history. Empowered with that on-line information, operators will be better able to reduce scrap and improve quality.

In a statement released today, Bob Rouleau said “The close of this acquisition combines CalAmp’s long, successful history of delivering cost-effective high quality solutions with Dataradio’s unparalleled portfolio of high performance wireless RF products. This combination is expected to energize future growth across both businesses. In addition to giving us the purchasing power to reduce our manufacturing costs, CalAmp brings some great technology to the combined company. There is a lot of synergy and I’m very excited about what we can do together.”

A new Indian electricity policy has set ambitious goals to bring access to the electricity to all Indian households. The emphasis is in rural electrification; 125,000 villages translating into over 25 million households. This demand is to be fully met by 2012. Viola's Arctic IEC-104 Gateway, a product specified together with ABB, helps power utilities save costs and improve distribution management.

Wavetrend, the world-leading manufacturer of active Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, is pleased to announce two new board positions with the appointment of Ken Moss as Executive Chairman and Charles Cameron as a Non-Executive Director. In addition, Adrian Segens has been appointed as Head of Sales and Marketing for Europe. By strengthening the management team, Wavetrend plans to capitalize on the significant opportunities for growth in the active RFID market.

The Engelberger Robotics Award is the robotic industry’s ultimate honor. Four leaders were presented awards at the 37th International Symposium on Robotics, May 16, during AUTOMATICA in Munich, Germany. The awards—named for Joseph F. Engelberger, considered the “father of robotics”—recognize significant achievements in the areas of leadership, application, education and technology development.

ABB announced today that Robert N. (Bob) Hausler has been appointed Vice-President Marketing and Strategic Planning for Instrumentation in its Automation Products Division. He will be based at ABB's US headquarters for Instrumentation in Warminster, PA. In his new role, Hausler will immediately focus on top line growth, portfolio management, and strategic planning.

BETA, located in The Netherlands, serves virtually all industry sectors with a broad range of pressure and temperature switch products. BETA currently operates throughout Europe, Asia, and portions of the Middle East. Through this acquisition, K-TEK is planning to offer all BETA products through K-TEK's distribution network in the Americas and in selected countries within Asia and the Middle East.

The program now includes 90% of pressure measurement products, 80% of DolpHin pH sensors, plus many popular magnetic flowmeters, strip chart recorders, and electronic indicating recorders. Rocket Shipment is an industry-first order processing and production system that facilitates a 24-hour turn around of custom orders for a broad range of Foxboro instrumentation products at no extra charge.

Flowserve Corp., a global provider of fluid motion and control products and services, announces the launch of new Learning Resource Center (LRC) instructional labs, which offer hands-on technical facilities for pump, valve and seal system optimization and maintenance training. The LRC is an innovation in the industry, offering hands-on training in a simulated plant environment that features complete pumping systems and equipment from both Flowserve and other manufacturers.

As a Gold Certified Partner, Intermec has demonstrated expertise with Microsoft technologies and a proven ability to meet customers' requirements. Microsoft Gold Certified Partners receive a rich set of benefits, including access, training and support, giving them a competitive advantage in the channel.

Scheduled for November 29-December 1, 2006, at the Hilton Americas Hotel in Houston, Texas, the event will feature Yokogawa Electric Corporation President and CEO, Isao Uchida, as a keynote speaker and offer attendees a glimpse into the heart of Yokogawa R&D developments.

Les Machineries AutomaTech plans on using KUKA Robots in wood product manufacturing application cells designed to increase small and medium sized manufacturers' efficiency. Les Machineries AutomaTech Inc. is a leading engineering consulting firm specializing in industrial automation.

The system allows Atlas to offer value-added RFID services to clients that are progressively being required to meet RFID mandates of mass-merchandiser behemoths like Wal-Mart. "This project allowed us to extrapolate many of the best practices we discovered through our initial deployment at Sikeston [Missouri], and build yet another solid RFID infrastructure for Atlas [Cold Storage] here in Appleton, Wisconsin." says Arsalan Ahmed, Director of RFID Development at Ship2Save.

The D10 Series consists of three high-performance models that service a range of application demands. Models include the D10 Expert™ with Numeric Display, D10 Expert with Bargraph Display and D10 Discrete Output. The D10 Expert models also feature intuitive push-button TEACH that allows static, dynamic or single-point programming.

AlarmAnalyst presents graphical on-line representations of the state of a process plant using alarms, events and operator actions. Time stamps on all values are obtained from the control systems, as part of the acquired data, for a true root cause analysis. Plant stability can be assessed using real-time displays of trends in alarm behavior.

Clark, an industry veteran with more than 20 years of material handling experience, was previously director, international and newspaper operations. Clark joined FKI Logistex in 1999, and was instrumental in developing the company's manufacturing-based business in the United Kingdom. He has played a major role in building the customer base in Mexico and Canada for FKI Logistex Manufacturing Systems North America.

This white paper prepared by MasterControl discusses why SOPs are more than just a tool of operation. SOPs directly affect product quality, and therefore, compliance. Once established, an efficient and effective SOP management system will serve as a foundation for an organization's sustainable compliance and long-term success in the market.

The Nanotest Weblog keeps visitors abreast of the latest news in the nanotechnology and MEMS industry through frequent posts of technical and business developments. Linda Bell, Publisher of Nanotech Briefs, said she expects the new blog to be an important contribution to the emerging field of nanotechnology.

This acquisition follows the acquisition of Invensys Advanced Building Systems (ABS EMEA) completed in July 2005 and will be very complementary with Schneider Electric’s building automation platform. IBS generated revenues of $142 million for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2006, with operating profit of $20 million. The company is a leading provider of building automation products and services in North America with interesting positions in Asia.