Articles and News

A complex process is not a complicated process with a large number of measurements and actuators. It is complex because its variables are highly coupled and correlated. As much as possible, control sh

The collaboration is helping to establish measurable cybersecurity criteria for network-connected power management products and systems.

Initiated by Siemens, the Charter of Trust calls for binding rules and standards to build trust in cybersecurity and further advance digitalization.

Located in Eagan, the building on Lone Oak Road has more than 13,000 square-feet of space. It triples the amount of room Somic operates from at its current headquarters in Bensenville, IL.

A distillation column refers to one piece of equipment in the distillation process, which will contain several loops.

This is the first installation in Continental Europe to provide a detailed network model which will support the safe operation of PSE’s national power network and its interface within the European energy market. The initiative is part of Poland’s efforts to upgrade and modernize the country’s grid.

By Ramona Schindler, Siemens Industry, Inc. With the machine tool industry in flux currently, as it seeks to find its way into the digital world, the entire process chain necessitates the integration of suppliers who can respond to the needs of the industry.

Softing's toolkits are designed to speed up development of OPC Classic and OPC UA servers. They provide a comprehensive collection of annotated libraries which facilitate the launch of products with OPC functionality.

ABB has won an order worth around $45 million from German transmission system operator TransnetBW to upgrade a substation in Philippsburg, in the southwest German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg.

Over his 30-year career, Mr. Ford has served in various roles at Automatic Data Processing (ADP), Mentor Graphics, and Autodesk. He's developed CAD software, acquired and integrated technology and service companies, and created strategic partnerships with companies such as Apple, Dell, Lenovo, and Alcoa.

Learn best practices for inspecting, testing and documenting a safety instrumented system. Explore applications for these practices in the field, including valves and simpler instruments.

Aimed at helping industrial manufacturers increase productivity and customer satisfaction, the Forum will define standards for an open, interoperable, secure process automation architecture. The Business Guide expresses the motivation and vision for this architecture as a business imperative for both users and suppliers of industrial control systems.

By Matt Collins, ide Systems It’s essential that engineers know how to test cables effectively to ensure they are fit for purpose. This article explains what engineers should look for when testing electrical cabling.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The interoperability of process control systems has been a largely philosophical debate, up until this point, but tangible examples of interoperabilty may soon be on their way

The four partner companies in the ADAS iiT Consortium have pooled their expertise to create a unique one-stop solution for simulating and validating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) for autonomously operated vehicles.

The plant control system refurbishment with zenon resulted in an operational cost reduction of 30 per cent and a 15 per cent production increase through the elimination of downtime and sub-optimal operation.

The program includes Ignition Onboard and Ignition Edge Onboard. Ignition by Inductive Automation is an industrial application platform with tools for building solutions in human-machine interface (HMI), supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA), and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

In an effort to better serve customers, Ascent is consolidating the engineering teams from its longstanding Michigan businesses, Global Tooling Systems, Odyssey Industries, Brown Aerospace and Ascent Integration – North America into an Engineering Center of Excellence at its Macomb campus.

DCS upgrades must consider the safety, reliability, and operation of a plant. Be careful when selecting a system, so you do not fall in the frequent-migration trap.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation In the 1993 science fiction film, Jurassic Park, visitors could take a tour in an autonomous Ford Explorer that used tracks on the ground to navigate. This was a good prediction of future technological advancements, but the autonomous vehicles of today are far more advanced than the Jurassic Explorer. This article explains how autonomous vehicles are beginning to transform the manufacturing industry.

This manufacturing location will support regional demand and provide a consistent supply of RTP Company’s custom compounded thermoplastics to customers operating in Europe.

A "circle" enclosed in a "square," which indicates it is an instrument with a shared display or a shared control.

When fully operational, these projects are intended to produce enough clean energy to power more than 350,000 households, reducing CO2 emissions from conventional generation by more than 1.5 million tons.

The office is located in Arlington, WA, part of the Seattle Metropolitan area. PDS provides full service precision spindle sales and service for CNC routers, milling machines and robotic units.

Nearly any industrial pipeline leak results in costs in the tens of millions of dollars, and costs are increasing over time. About a third of the documented costs involve property damage and cleanup

74 robot units per 10,000 employees is the new average of global robot density in the manufacturing industries (2015: 66 units). By regions, the average robot density in Europe is 99 units, in the Americas 84 and in Asia 63 units. The top 10 most automated countries in the world are: South Korea, Singapore, Germany, Japan, Sweden, Denmark, USA, Italy, Belgium and Taiwan.

As part of their agreement, Invasystems will adopt the Falkonry LRS machine learning system and empower well operation engineers to predict equipment and system failures. This is designed to help oil and gas operators reduce downtime and increase production by detecting patterns and conditions in existing operations data.

Siemens AG and Perceptive Engineering Ltd announced a partnership which offers Perceptive’s PharmaMV and Siemens Simatic Sipat software products closely integrated to provide a solution for advanced control and optimization applications in both continuous and batch pharmaceutical manufacturing.

The high-bay warehouse provides space for 6,900 pallets and around 120,000 storage containers in an area of 4,500 square meters and is operated in fully automated, paperless fashion.

By following the simple procedures outlined in the Bedrock SCADA Security Platform Specification, developers can upgrade any OPC UA compliant client into a secure OPC UA channel, across which users can exchange data between plant floor operations and SCADA applications.

With ‘Integrated Industry – Connect & Collaborate’ as its lead theme, HANNOVER MESSE 2018 aims to enable visitors to experience the new forms of business, work and collaboration that are being made possible by our increasingly connected, digitally networked industrial landscape.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com In the race for industrial profits, it’s not uncommon for organizations to run legacy equipment as long as they can, and avoid costly replacements and rewirings. While this can be a viable strategy in many areas, when it comes to industrial control network cyber security, it can be a deadly vulnerability for today’s organizations

An alternative methodology for designing multi-loop control structures based on steady-state indexes & multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems.

This two-day, multi-stream, event will be held in collaboration with PDT North America (PDT) at the Marriott Hotel, Tysons Corner, Virginia, USA on May 15-16. The theme for PLM Road Map North America 2018 (PLM Road Map) will be, "Charting the Course to PLM Value Together: Expanding the Value Footprint of PLM and Tackling PLM's Persistent Pain Points."

The PID term as described refers to the loop control technique used in controllers. A PID control loop includes proportional, integral, and derivative functions to control the process.

At NGK, Boyle will manage the product, catalog and pricing team to further catalog and content efforts for the NGK ignition, NTK sensor and Wells Vehicle Electronics product lines.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation A survey carried out by flavoured syrup supplier, Monin in October, 2017 found that 61 percent of Brits prefer coffee over tea. In a similar vein, this article compares the pros and cons of using traditional programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and newer programmable automation controllers (PACs).

The starter kit is a complement to SPECTRO’s spectrometers and will be provided by Bernd Kraft. By using these certified multielement standards, customers can be certain that their analysis devices are optimally adjusted from the start – a prerequisite for correct analysis results.

The first rollout will be at the company’s Reno, Nevada, facility and will feature virtual reality training designed by Rosendin’s building information modeling (BIM) department as part of a true construction workflow. Other company sites will implement the technologies throughout 2018.

The Maritime Link is a 500 megawatt (MW) high-voltage direct current (HVDC) connection that will enable clean, renewable energy, generated in Newfoundland and Labrador to be transmitted to the North American grid in Nova Scotia.

Sponsored and organized by DiscoverE, Engineers Week, 18-24 February 2018, celebrates how engineers make a positive difference in our world and seeks to raise awareness around the need to attract more young people to the engineering profession.

The Object Management Group (OMG) released three new standards, six requests for proposal, two requests for comments, and elected new board members at its quarterly Technical Meeting in December in Burlingame, CA, USA

The Industrial Internet of Things is an important advancement, and a real opportunity to increase ROI and asset value. But first, industrial control systems have to be made secure from hackers and cyb

Schneider Electric Software will work closely with Cylance to enable heightened levels of security for customers leveraging the Industrial Software Platform for Engineering, Planning and Operations, Asset Performance and Monitoring and Control across their industrial and infrastructure operations.

Harting is highlighting the role of Gigabit Ethernet through its portfolio of connection technology, including support for CC-Link IE, the gigabit industrial Ethernet version of the CC-Link fieldbus.

After another busy year talking to a wide range of users, suppliers and industry consultants, and attending over 20 industry conferences and related events, I have another year’s worth of informed insights to share on the latest trends that will shape automation in 2018.

Designed exclusively to meet the needs of LDAR and air compliance professionals, the three-day event, to be held 5-8 March 2018 in Galveston, Texas, features a technical program and lineup of expert speakers as well as ISA-led training, a vendor exhibition and networking activities.

By Philip Allen, Grace Engineered Products Driving to work last week, deep in thought, pondering the many reasons companies use Permanent Electrical Safety Devices (PESDs) in their electrical safety programs I finally stumbled across a perfect analogy for electrical safety principles.

Process industry plants contain hazards that can have very severe consequences if a loss of containment occurs. Many of the safeguards that have been designed by engineers to protect process plants we

Aspen Mtell is part of the aspenONE Asset Performance Management (APM) software suite combining big data, machine learning and process knowledge to maximize performance across the design, operations and maintenance asset lifecycle.