Articles and News

The IM-SCADA Software enables Exploration and Production companies to meet regulatory requirements, reduce liability, and streamline gas production.

Graphite operator panels received Underwriters Laboratories (UL) Functional Safety Listing Mark as well as UL Listed status for Class I, Division 2 in the U.S. and Canada.

The MMIM RTU has been deployed to control lighting on Line 1 of the metro system which currently links Los Andes County to the city centre.

In 1999, Wolfgang Seel founded the company and initially developed microchips for the PROFIBUS system – one of the most important bus systems in the automation industry.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Manufacturers worldwide are in a productivity race enabled by a wide range of new automation technology. In order for your company to remain competitive, it needs to apply new technology to grow and survive in the world economy. To do this, manufacturing companies must stay up to date on the latest developments.

Elmo is offering login access to its EASII Experience RPS for anyone to explore motors and drives in action, configure the EtherCAT network, perform complex multi-axis synchronized motions, and develop IEC-61131-3 programs.

OSI has been awarded a contract by Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) to implement an Energy Management System (EMS) based on OSI’s monarch platform.

The voluntary NIST cybersecurity framework provides a flexible, performance-based and cost-effective approach for managing factory and plant floor risk.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 visions, which includes connecting people and services, leverages open communications, like OPC UA, and embedded-to-enterprise computing.

X-Scan robot inspects ship welds by means of laser, ultrasound and electromagnetic methods, similar to systems developed by Babcock & Wilcox in the 1970s to check nuclear reactor welds.

The ASM Consortium was started in 1994 to address Process Industry concerns about the high cost of incidents, such as unplanned shutdowns, fires, explosions, emissions, etc.

By comparing with a physical model-based LQR controller and an ARX model-set-based gain scheduling LQR controller, researchers achieved superior MIMO RBF-ARX model-based control.

A 5,000 square foot engineering office is opening in Beloit, WI and a 30,000 square foot welding & service manufacturing facility is opening in Colorado.

By Greg Hood, Rockwell Automation In end-user facilities that heavily rely on legacy equipment, the right line-integration system can provide real-time insights to prevent and diagnose production issues.

By Mike Hannah, Rockwell Automation Forecasts say that industrial automation will make up the majority of the Internet of Things by 2025, and Internet Protocol (IP)-addressable devices are the key enabling force that will get industry there.

Rotork supplied more than 400 heavy duty CP and GP Range pneumatic valve actuators to the CLOV FPSO (Floating Production, Storage and Offloading) vessel in Angola’s Block 17 offshore oilfield.

OSI will supply a SCADA/EMS system to Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica Dominicana (ETED), which has more than 4,700km of 345kV, 230kV, 138kV and 69kV transmission lines and over 140 transmission substations.

Wolt has a BSEE degree from University of Washington Seattle with follow-on graduate coursework at Washington, and has extensive hardware design experience in the aerospace as well as commercial sectors.

Solectria manufactures high performance photovoltaic (PV) inverters for residential, commercial, and utility-scale power systems.

Atlas Products is a UK-based provider of Software as a Service (SaaS)-based business-to-business (B2B) EDI integration, secure data transfer, and e-invoicing solutions.

The video shows how the system avoids costly shutdowns related to faulty FOUNDATION Fieldbus or PROFIBUS PA segments.

AST gained ATEX certification for its intrinsically safe pressure transducers in Class I Zone 0 Exia IIB and IIC, T4 rated areas.

Every motion controller will have its own command protocol, or series of rules for communication, that dictates how you interact it. Zaber's devices use two command protocols: an ASCII protocol and a 6-byte binary protocol.

Watlow added 25,000 square feet to its R&D facility in San Jose, California, adding a Class 1000 clean room.

The design, based on the aerodynamics of a seagull’s wing, is 45% efficient and uses advanced automation control technology for continuous optimization based on wind conditions.

The Bosch Community Fund awarded four grants to three central Pennsylvania educational institutions: Lehigh University, Lehigh Career & Technical Institute and Pennsylvania State University.

Growing Future Automation Professionals

Barry-Wehmiller Design Group is expanding its Northeast operations with a new office in East Brunswick, NJ.

ASHRAE and the Indoor Air Quality Association (IAQA) will merge and IAQA headquarters will relocate from Rockville, MD, to Atlanta.

IHS projects that gradual increases in global economic activity will pick up, to 2.9% in 2014 and 3.5% in 2015.

Cosgriff, a former vice admiral in the U.S. Navy, comes to NEMA after serving as Senior Vice President of International Business and Government for Textron Systems Corporation.

Donations included Fluke-754 documenting calibrators, scopes, digital multimeters (DMMs) and other test equipment.

CENTUM VP production control system has obtained the ISASecure Embedded Device Security Assurance (EDSA) certification from the ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI).

By Mike Roberts, LNS Research Leaders understand that if you’re not moving forward, making year-over-year gains in key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics, then you’re destined to face some serious challenges down the road.

ISCI Chartered Labs are now authorized to use the Raven for ICS CRT tool for use in the communication robustness test element of ISASecure product certifications.

May U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $351.93 million, down 10.0% from April and down 17.5% when compared with the total of $426.40 million reported for May 2013.

The manufacturing industry is growing, but there is still much work to be done. The sector comprises 12 percent of the overall economy and greater investments in community colleges and trade schools are necessary.

Exhibitors at Industrial Automation NA will demonstrate collaborative robotics, vision guided robotics, material handling robotics, as well as servo drives for robotics applications, robotics integration software and services.

By Greg Goodwin, LNS Research The writing is on the wall: Paper is being slowly but surely phased out of our daily lives, and as goes the consumer so eventually will the enterprise.

CVA electric control valve actuators are enabling the Sydney Water Corporation in Australia to control the pressure in the city’s water supply network with greatly increased response and accuracy.

Asset Management Program (AMP) for couplings is an online tool for tracking the location, life history and latest revision drawings and installation instructions for all critical drivetrain couplings owned by customers.

How to Upgrade and Replace Systems in a Running Production Environment

By Bill Lydon, Editor Industry 4.0, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrial Internet are all driving computing to automation edge devices. These devices include controllers, sensors, actuators, motor controls, and drives. The fact that these devices could now be on a more widely known IP network creates the opportunity for viruses and malicious control of industrial equipment.

Best candidates have taken the capabilities of HART instruments beyond configuration and calibration, or are using real-time device diagnostics and process information integrated with control, information, asset management or safety systems.

Aramco Services Company (ASC) is the US-based subsidiary of Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The MagnetArc welding process developed by KUKA Systems is in use for production around the globe.

Technical research fdocuses on performance of a nonlinear PD controller is tested and compared with other PD and PID tuning rules for pure integrating plus delay.

This organizational certification ensures that suppliers include cybersecurity requirements in all phases of their development and maintenance lifecycle processes for industrial automation and control systems products.

Taking place in August at the Crowne Plaza Orlando-Universal Hotel in Orlando, the 2014 ISA WWAC Symposium is a three-day event that focuses on the challenges associated with automation and instrumentation in the water and wastewater sectors.

May U.S. cutting tool consumption totaled $169 million, according to the U.S. Cutting Tool Institute and AMT, down 3.5 percent from April’s total and down 4.4 percent from May 2013.