Articles and News

Ethernet Direct Latin America will serve the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking regions in Latin America.

Fully searchable CD-ROM provides complete product and design information contained in the company's print catalogs. More than 1,000 pages of technical specifications, product numbers, dimensions and application tips on 28,000 products are fully searchable by keyword or product number.

KD-Rig advanced diagnostic testing system provides NASCAR teams with detailed data about the chassis and suspension in a variety of simulation scenarios. It provides precise suspension motion while measuring bump steer, camber change and wheel loads. The KD-Rig also easily allows interference checking throughout the travel range.

The TiPS User Conference is scheduled for April 17-19, 2007 in Austin, TX. A highligh is an alarm management panel seated by founding members of the ASM Consortium; contributing authors of the EEMUAR 191 guideline; and people who have been involved with assessment and analysis of the world's most notorious incidents and who remain on the leading edge of alarm and upset management.

The European Collaborative Production Management (CPM) software market is in flux. Over the next five years, the market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7%. In 2006, the CPM software and service market was worth $889.6 million and is forecasted to exceed $1.6 billion by 2011 according to a new ARC Advisory Group study.

The booth layout will feature purpose-built kiosks offering an extensive overview of key fieldbus applications and FOUNDATION technology solutions through displays and demonstrations of registered devices, host systems, tools and services available from more than 20 of the world's leading automation equipment suppliers. The Interkama 2007 International Trade Fair is held April 16-20 in Hannover, Germany.

ABB will supply burner management, boiler controls, and BOP controls for two 330 MW circulating fluidized bed boilers at Cleco Power's new $1 billion Rodemacher Power Station, a 660 MW generating unit near Boyce, LA. ABB will provide System 800xA with operator stations, Harmony Bridge controllers for monitoring and control, and PLC interfaces to the turbine controls via standard OPC technology.

Emerson won a $7 million contract to automate the four unit, 4,000-MW, coal-fired plant in April 2005. The plant, which is owned by Huaneng Power International, is the first 1,000-MW-per-unit power plant in China, as well as the country’s first to use ultra-supercritical technologies. Two of the four units recently went on line.

The online SIL Resource Center has examples of how to determine Safety Integrity Levels and Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS), links to associated standards organizations, an extensive Questions and Answers section on the background and requirements of SIL and SIS process industry practices, along with a Common SIL Myths section.

Xycom Automation is adopting Pro-Face as its new corporate name. Xycom will remain a product brand name fully supported in the Pro-face family of Operator Interface and Industrial PC products.

Kuka Robotics has been selected by Transbotics Corporation to provide robotics to work with a new line of Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV). The robots and AGVs streamline material handling processes for manufacturers by offering a complete solution for material handling from receiving to production to shipping.

The worldwide market for magnetic flowmeters is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.5% over the next five years. The market was $730.4 million in 2006 and is forecasted to be nearly $866 million in 2011, according to an ARC Advisory Group study.

The worldwide market for servo drives is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.6% over the next five years. The market was $3.07 billion in 2005 and is forecasted to be over $3.839 billion in 2010, according to an ARC Advisory Group study.

The "Next Generation CAD Configurators Save Time and Money" whitepaper details five key trends in the manufactured products market that have converged to create a new opportunity for manufacturers and distributors. The white paper explains how the company's comfigurator software helps.

The Consortium plans to work on new identify schema that provides more detailed information about an instrument, new requirements for event logging, an enhanced discovery mechanism that makes it easier to identify LXI devices over the Ethernet, and more.

Dr. James Truchard, CEO, president and cofounder of National Instruments was elected to membership in the National Academy of Engineering. Truchard was recognized for creating virtual instrumentation, which enabled the rapid development of customized measurement systems in industry, academia and classrooms.

Phoenix Contact was honored as the top manufacturer-supplier of passive components by the National Electronic Distributors Association.

Integrys will offer the full line of JAI and PULNiX camera brands to customers in the machine vision, medical, and scientific communities. Integrys is a supplier of specialized products and support services for OEMs and system integrators with locations in Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto (Mississauga), Ottawa, and Montreal.

ABB won a $2 million order to upgrade the Control System at Australian Vinyls PVC resins plant located in Laverton, Victoria. The project will evolve the existing control systems to ABB's IndustrialIT System 800xA with Batch Manager and MOD AC460 controllers. Installation and commissioning is scheduled to be underway by January 2008.

The Dickson Calibration Club service is designed to help those with NIST-certified instruments ensure their instruments retain their original calibration specifications. Members of the Club are able to create an online database for all of their instruments and assets such that they receive an e-mail notification when instruments or assets are due for calibrations.

Emerson changed the brand name of TankRadar gauging systems from Saab Rosemount to Rosemount. The only change for customers will be the disappearance of the Saab name from the product brand.

Green Hills Software has teamed with Curtiss-Wright Controls Embedded Computing, who will offer developers complete embedded hardware/software solutions based on the Green Hills INTEGRITY RTOS and the MULTI development tool suite for modular computing and integrated subsystem applications in the defense and aerospace markets.

Temposonics catalog for the fluid power industry covers R-Series products for motion control applications and G-Series products for upgrading and retrofitting legacy Temposonics products.

K-TEK acquired KAB Instruments and their line of non-contact ultrasonic level measurement equipment. KAB, located in South Africa, serves the mining, plastics, pulp and paper, and aggregates industries with a family of ultrasonic transducers, transmitters, and controllers.

Wedron Silica has chosen Westermo's high-security Lynx switches for a full industrial Ethernet redundancy ring that monitors and controls the entire mining facility. This network exchanges data from hydraulic high pressure mining cannons, and from cameras linked to the control center via fiber-optics help to control and adjust truck loading and sand drying rooms.

Rockwell Automation sold two medium voltage drive turn-key solutions to zinc and iron ore mining operations in the Swedish mining industry, valued at 4 million Euros.

Velocity Group will sell IFS Applications' ERP software in the Midwest. Velocity Group has been selling another ERP solution throughout North America for the past seven years.

Kepware's KEPServerEX suite will be used to supply device connectivity for TriA Solution's A3 Core, used in power monitoring and testing management solutions in Power and Distributed Generation.

Castors and wheels manufacturer Tente has selected Barco to provide a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) for their plant in Ballymote, Co Sligo, Ireland. The PLANTMASTER MES will be installed at Tente's injection moulding facility in Ballymote to provide real-time visibility of all Key Performance Indicators (KPI.

Dynomax built a new three-story facility in Croatia to house both production and engineering within a single building.