Articles and News

The five-year contract will enable the Navy and other Department of Defense agencies to quickly acquire engineered systems and services from Rockwell Automation that are vital for daily and strategic shipboard operations, domestically and globally. The contract is a milestone for Rockwell Automation as it marks the first time a long-term U.S. Navy contract has been directly awarded to Rockwell Automation as the prime contractor.

At a recent meeting held at Sensors Expo in Chicago, ISA's Wireless Systems for Automation standards committee (ISA-SP100) announced the completion of several Use Case studies and plans for continued efforts.

La Tortilla Factory, headquartered in Santa Rosa, CA, has chosen the DEACOM Accounting & Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Software System to integrate its entire food manufacturing operations to maximize productivity and profitability.

Quantum Devices, Inc. meets all applicable Reduction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) regulations as of July 1, 2006 for electronic components and hardware. RoHS regulation states that new electrical and electronic equipment cannot exceed maximum concentration values for any homogenous material within the equipment.

The new Customer Application Center will provide an enhanced customer experience with products and solutions that improve plant reliability and productivity for the power generation, oil and gas, pulp and paper, cement and mining segments.

New white paper explores how an integrated control and information system can reduce costs, improve regulatory compliance and improve time-to-market.

Invensys Process Systems announces that its 2006 North American Customer Conference will be held on December 4-7th at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas, Texas.

The combined exposition will occupy all 800,000 square feet in the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, creating the nation's largest design and manufacturing tradeshow. The co-located events are expected to include 1,800 exhibiting companies and attract nearly 50,000 attendees.

Innova Holdings received a multiple unit order for the recently launched URC3 (Universal Robot Controller) from a custom fabricator of parts for the trucking industry.

Beaudet will be responsible for providing overall leadership to the continued development of world-class quality systems for the drives operation, which manufactures and ships drives to customers throughout North America.

Life sciences personnel are required to undergo continuous training in GxP regulations, and FDA investigators typically review employee competency whenever a deviation is observed during inspection. Companies certified to ISO 9001:2000 have similar training requirements to ensure that employees know how to perform their duties within company and industry guidelines.

This acquisition builds on the longstanding partnership between the two companies, as well as on the 60%-40% joint venture set up by Schneider Toshiba Inverter and VA TECH ELIN EBG Elektronik in 2004.

How will the world's 32 million books be accurately scanned for inclusion in the universal digital library? The answer lies in highly efficient, highly reliable, page turning and scanning machines that exemplify the latest in automation science, an emerging field that is the focus of an increasingly influential new journal, the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE).

Pilot implementations of SmartPlant Enterprise will be conducted in Air Liquide engineering centers in France and the United States. The overall deployment will then be extended to the company's centers in China, Japan and India.

In all his years of higher education, on-the-job experience and management successes, Peter Batey didn't have training for the kind of devastation that Hurricane Katrina brought to his refinery.

ISA's First Annual Marketing & Sales Summit will be held 13-15 September 2006 at the Omni Austin Hotel Downtown in Austin, Texas. The summit, entitled "Best Practices in Customer Acquisition and Retention," will help marketing and sales executives in the automation markets meet the strategic and tactical challenges of the 21st century. The event is sponsored by the Management Division of ISA.

WAGO Corporation is pleased to announce the launch of its mobile marketing program, also known as the "Innovation in Automation Tour." The tour is set to start the first week in August, beginning in Wisconsin, and continuing on through the rest of North America.

Siemens will add interfaces to its Simatic PCS 7 process control system and its Process Device Manager (PDM) tool to support FOUNDATION fieldbus. Emerson will similarly expand its DeltaV and Ovation control systems, as well as the company's AMS Suite, with an interface for Profibus DP and Profinet.

Neil Cooper, general manager of the Invensys Avantis business unit, will speak at the 2006 Canadian Manufacturing Week Expo and Conference this September.

The Schneider Electric North American Operating Division today announced Christopher B. Curtis will assume the role of president, Schneider Electric USA. Curtis will be responsible for electrical distribution, automation and control, and services business activities within the United States.

Schneider Electric North American Operating Division today announced it will host Initi@tive 2006: the Gateway to the New Electric World - a debut trade exposition in the United States. Successful Schneider Electric Initi@tive events have previously been held in Mexico, Australia, Belgium, Thailand, Turkey and other countries around the world.

The Los Angeles office, located in Cerritos, Calif., will be under the direction of Alan Cheney, Managing Partner of the Design Group’s northern California operation, based near Sacramento.

Walter K. Weisel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Innova Holdings, has been invited to address the Florida Chapter of the FBI National Academy Associates Annual Training Conference on Monday, July 31, 2006, at Sanibel Harbor Resort & Spa in Fort Myers, Fla.

Focus will be on unmanned vehicle systems and applications to support real-world requirements of the Department of Defense (DoD) and Homeland Security

ISA's website now gives users the ability to preview ISA standards. Overviews, tables of contents, scopes, definitions, and other informative sections of the standards are now available to visitors.

OSIsoft has been asked to add OPC capability to some of its client applications. While we agree with this in principle, we suggest a different implementation. This presentation will include a description of our recommended architecture for the visualization of OPC data in RtPM applications.

The Standard newsletter provides global information and technical details relating to the Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI) Interface A standards.

MTS Systems Corp., Sensors Division’s C- and G-Series sensors are now being utilized in heat exchange applications as a means of measuring and ensuring the proper amount of cooling fluid in the system.

Learn the Seven Steps for Optimizing Your Alarm System and Become an Alarm Management Certified Professional.

Matrikon Inc. (TSX: MTK), a leading provider of solutions for industrial intelligence, today reported financial results for the third quarter of fiscal year 2006, which ended May 31, 2006.

Accu-Sort Systems has installed a FAST Tag® In-Motion automated RFID tag application system for a leading distributor of entertainment products. This installation will help the company meet RFID compliance standards.

Williams Power has selected Invensys to implement an InFusion -based Generation Management System (GMS) for its fleet of electrical generation assets.

Keithley Instruments, Inc. (NYSE:KEI), announces it has received the prestigious Editors’ Choice Best Product Award, presented annually by Semiconductor International magazine, for its Model 4200-SCS Semiconductor Characterization System with Pulse I-V (PIV) Package.

National Instruments welcomes thought leaders and technical experts from industry and academia, including General Motors, Xilinx and UC Berkeley, to the Graphical System Design Summit sponsored by Altera, Analog Devices, EE Times, Embedded Systems Design, Freescale Semiconductor, Intel and Wind River.

In April 2006, Phoenix Contact joined the Mechatrolink Members Association (MMA), the Japan-based user organization dedicated to the development and promotion of the Mechatrolink motion network. The Mechatrolink motion network is an easy and cost-effective communication solution that covers the requirements of high-performance multi-axis servo systems.

ODVA announces the launch of the CIP Conformity Club™ in recognition of ODVA members’ commitment to the interoperability of CIP Networks products through the practice of conformance testing.

Emerson Process Management is now offering comprehensive courses on smart Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) with eLearning online training.

“It was an ambitious and visionary decision of my brother Gerd Eisert, the architect of the Phoenix Contact business activities abroad, to enter the North American continent 25 years ago,” said CEO Klaus Eisert. “He was convinced that this highly developed nation would be a future market for Phoenix Contact. At that time, we were competing with a small range of European DIN-rail terminal blocks on the one hand and PCB terminal blocks on the other hand. This turned out to be a success story!"

"This organization brings us closer to our customers, faster and more reactive in meeting their needs and gives us more focus, innovation and efficiency in our business," commented Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman of the Management Board and Chief Executive Officer. "Our overall goals remain the same: to continue our new program and deliver the best possible answer to the growing needs of our customers."

QSI's QTERM-G75 touch screen terminal is used to display information about the electrical grid interconnection of the wind farm. RAI provides the engineering expertise to put together the protection and integration system. The system uses a specific QTERM-G75 (model GB272) and programming cable to display information from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. (SEL) products.

XY Chart NET is a .NET WinForm control that integrates seamlessly into a Visual Studio .NET 2003 & 2005 applications, reducing time to market while providing powerful engineering and scientific XY line and scatter charts for presentation and analysis. Very little programming is required thanks to XY Chart's key built-in features such as zoom, scrollbars, pan, crosshairs and coordinates display.

The recently released OPC UA (Unified Architecture) standard helps third-party components, devices and systems quickly and easily integrate with System 800xA Extended Automation. OPC UA works with System 800xA's unique object management infrastructure when integrating these third-party systems to provide customers with even greater reliability, security, and ease of integration than prior generation OPC interfaces.

Partnering with George T. Hall brings new product lines, a huge in-house inventory and new capabilities to best serve our customers and Industries. The George T Hall company has been in business since 1932, supplying Industrial Process, Burner Boiler and HVAC controls and systems as well as UL control panels and engineering expertise to the Southern California marketplace.

Intermec alleges that Alien's Generation 2 RFID readers and tags infringe 10 Intermec patents. Intermec is seeking an injunction prohibiting Alien from selling the infringing RFID products, as well as monetary damages.

Bosch Rexroth has updated the semiconductor section of its website as a destination for tool designers and end-users to find new ideas and innovative products that help improve productivity, increase throughput, raise reliability, and lower costs in semiconductor manufacturing.

Rockwell Automation hosted nearly 2,000 attendees last week at its ninth annual RSTechED partner training and user event in Scottsdale, Ariz. At the event, the company addressed the growing importance of plant-wide information integration and showcased its expanded suite of plant-wide information software, Rockwell Software FactoryTalk.

Next-generation MVD (multivariable digital) technology and sensor design innovations set new industry standards for accuracy, stability, and versatility of Micro Motion Coriolis flowmeters. The advances deliver breakthroughs in entrained gas measurement performance and patented self-verification technology that allow in-situ assessment of meter calibration of the company's Micro Motion ELITE Coriolis flowmeters.

NIMTECH is a global leader in data acquisition and data logging systems used in industrial measurement applications. Computer Aided Solutions specializes in the distribution of stand-alone data logging and data acquisition systems including products from more than 10 manufacturers.

This latest accolade is one of three awards presented to ICS Triplex ISaGRAF for its IEC 61131 / IEC 61499 compliant software, ISaGRAF 5.0. Awards are presented annually by Mesures Magazine in a variety of categories for innovative products considered to have significant industry impact. A representative from ICS Triplex ISaGRAF accepted the award at a reception held in Paris last week.