Articles and News

By Albert Behr, Behr Technologies Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) will soon become the standard IIoT communications infrastructure covering the entire industrial facility and supporting a multitude of uses cases, from simple temperature monitoring in the manufacturing plant to condition monitoring, energy consumption tracking, and worker safety.

What started as the sole responsibility of engineers and technicians has now grown to become a backbone of business operations as organizations realize the impact maintenance can have on their efficie

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Throughout the four-day event, which hosted over 21,000 attendees from more than 100 countries, it was obvious that SAP is focused on growing its role to encompass all manufacturing functions outside of design and hard real-time control.

This agreement enable PA Solutions to provide a cloud-based, quality management system for its clients, and by leveraging their expertise in industrial engineering and IT, PA Solutions can also provide support and capabilities to other partner organizations within the InfinityQS partner network.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation As cryptocurrencies become more popular, their creators are vying for new customers. This article explains how blockchain and the Tangle differ and what both can do to improve manufacturing practice.

Converging networking and other technologies ease remote access from the plant floor to PCs, tablets, and smartphones.

Watlow SELECT is a buying experience allowing customers to find products online and in Watlow catalogs, design the product to fit their application, readily access drawings and technical content and receive five days or less shipment on most products.

By John Miles & Paolo Butti, Rockwell Automation Smart manufacturing strategies are helping today's manufacturers produce high-quality electric vehicles quickly, affordably and with minimal risk. We aren’t likely to see a slowdown anytime soon

This infographic provides an overview of operational machine learning and how it is improving production throughput, uptime, quality and safety across many industries and applications.

Additive Manufacturing (3D printing) is increasingly being used in the manufacturing industry for prototyping, low volume manufacture and for making items with complex shapes which cannot easily be reproduced by other means.

The symbol reflects a temperature regulator, filled thermal system.

The event took place from June 10 to 15 in San Diego and featured over 300 hundred hours of training and knowledge sharing. Attendees joined hands-on labs, technical sessions and management discussions to learn about the latest techniques and technologies to optimize production data, build secure networks and accelerate a digital transformation.

The Dealer Design Awards program was established to honor excellence in HVACR product design. This is the fifth honor for the T6 Electrical Testers since the product was introduced in September 2017.

Robin has a clear understanding of the company’s capabilities and market sectors, and will lead a growing team to further develop Boulting Technology for the delivery of low voltage (LV) panels, control systems, industrial networks and pump system optimization.

As part of the Mek team, Jeroen will oversee the delivery and logistics of Mek AOI and SPI systems.

Launched at HANNOVER MESSE 2018 in Hannover, Germany, the IAMD event supports the latest advancements in the fluid power industry by demonstrating digitally connected fluid power products to international distributors and system integrators.

Award presentations will be made at the ISA Honors & Awards Gala on 14 October 2018 at the Grand Hyatt Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Used to secure billions of computer hardware and financial systems, TPM technology uses a secret key embedded into a microchip or firmware.

By Ryan Gutherie, TM Robotics As other countries embark on initiatives to encourage the adoption of automated technologies, this article investigates America’s relationship with robots.

The cause of a loop problem could be in the final control element, sensor/transmitter, software parameters, logic configuration, operator practices, or process design.

The International Society of Automation and The Open Group have agreed to a liaison Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to facilitate cooperation in advancing and harmonizing the development of a multivendor, interoperable, secure control architecture for application across the process industries. Activities will include sharing of best practices, document review and joint forums.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Featuring numerous displays of the newest technologies, along with dozens of Honeywell and customer led sessions and technical discussions, the Honeywell Users Group Americas (HUG) buzzed in San Antonio this June with over 1,300 attendees.

Nano-satellite narrowband services to the Caribbean region will be provided by SAS' Pearls constellation once deployment commences in 2019. This supports the SAS business model of providing connectivity to equatorial locations such as the Caribbean, where these services are required.

By Jonathan Wikins, EU Automation Whether you’re working from home, picking up e-mails on the go or away on business, it’s usually possible to remotely access you company’s network. This article discusses secure remote access and the challenges it presents.

Research presents a new design for a PID controller with a lead lag filter using multiple dominant pole placement method.

By Martyn Williams, COPA-DATA UK Improved operations, a reduction in unplanned outages and better managed variations in market conditions — it's the idyllic aim of power leaders across the globe, but how is the digital twin concept making this goal a reality?

Learn to assess the alarm deadband setting on a high alarm.

The annual competition recognizes Schneider Electric technology partner companies and individuals responsible for the innovations, achievements and service that empower industrial and infrastructure customers to turn their process automation investments into the profit engines of their businesses.

Currently working out of 4 different locations in Loves Park, Rockford and South Beloit, Quantum Design recognized that a move was necessary in order to become more efficient and keep up with the current growth. However, retaining existing employees was equally important

In her new role at ABB, Darcy will continue to develop and strengthen ABB’s global food and beverage business. She will drive the growth plan together with the food and beverage country and business leads.

By Robert Landavazo, Tripwire The OT/IT convergence will no doubt be looked back upon as a turning point in industry’s fight for cyber security and further harnessing of technology for business success. Being an early, proactive leader in that regard certainly, in general, seems like a good role to be playing.

In addition to Subramanian’s role as director of manufacturing cybersecurity for DMDII, Subramanian also will serve as chief information security officer for UI LABS, DMDII’s parent organization, which is driving the digital future of manufacturing and cities.

The whitepaper, Chapter Five: Industrial Control Systems Life Cycle Cost Analysis – Quantitative Evaluation, delineates 450 different factors that impact costs across the following six phases of the industrial control system (ICS) life cycle: engineering, installation, commissioning, maintenance, system, and cyber security.

Aventics is a complement to Emerson’s capabilities and solutions in key discrete and hybrid automation markets, and creates a portfolio of fluid control and pneumatic devices that incorporate sensing and monitoring capabilities.

In a white paper titled, “Automation and the Modern Bakery,” Westfalia discusses how implementing automation can help manufacturers of baked goods overcome challenges

Since no single technology provider can enable IIoT alone, this joint effort will provide a mass-market, end-to-end wireless gateway solution to ensure connectivity with sensors for production-level industrial and commercial applications.

Since no single technology provider can enable IIoT alone, this joint effort will provide a mass-market, end-to-end wireless gateway solution to ensure connectivity with sensors for production-level industrial and commercial applications.

Seeq has secured $23M in Series B funding led by the Altira Group with participation by Chevron Technology Ventures, next47, the Siemens-backed global venture firm, Second Avenue Partners and other existing investors.

In addition to Subramanian’s role as director of manufacturing cybersecurity for DMDII, Subramanian also will serve as chief information security officer for UI LABS, DMDII’s parent organization, which is driving the digital future of manufacturing and cities.

The whitepaper, Chapter Five: Industrial Control Systems Life Cycle Cost Analysis – Quantitative Evaluation, delineates 450 different factors that impact costs across the following six phases of the industrial control system (ICS) life cycle: engineering, installation, commissioning, maintenance, system, and cyber security.

Getting funding for a large-scale automation project depends on proving ROI, so an accurate project cost estimate is paramount. Calculating such an estimate needs to follow a methodical process to avo

The NCDA Legislative Award recognizes an individual who has made a significant impact on policy or legislation related to the career development profession or to its recipients at the local, state, or national level.

High on the priority list for the second half of the year is encouraging strong turnout at several high-profile ISA events.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Much like the Fieldbus wars that marked the industrial automation industry of the 1990’s, there are early-warning signs of competing standards developing in TSN activity that could ignite a similar wave of chaos.

By Tom Ayral, Honeywell Cyber Security Various industry studies and intelligent guess-work already allow us to develop a first-pass financial estimate of potential losses from cyber attacks – which allows an estimate of the savings that implementing an effective cyber security program could bring.

Northrop Grumman chairman and chief executive officer Wes Bush announced that he will step down from the position of chief executive officer effective Jan. 1, 2019. He will remain chairman through July 2019.

To become certified, solution partners undergo a rigorous, multi‐faceted process facilitated by Siemens. A Siemens senior consulting engineer out of Karlsruhe, Germany audited multiple aeSolutions safety projects to ensure their project configuration workflow processes followed Siemens‐documented best practices, as well as international functional safety standards (IEC 61511).

With complex, critical products manufactured across multiple manufacturing sites, the challenge was to ensure manufacturing execution with the highest level of traceability, which could no longer be met by legacy tools.

The primary operations at the Knightdale, North Carolina location include the manufacture and shipment of Powervar’s GTS Series, Sinergy III, and Security Plus UPS products.

Technical guidance on ways to optimize settings and options for PID controllers from industry veteran Greg McMillan and participants in ISA's Mentor Program.

PLÜMAT will be introducing the Strategic Parts Management PARTsolutions by CADENAS to its business units of engineering, development and work preparation in the course of 2018.

An intrinsic safety barrier prevents excess voltage and current from reaching the hazardous area.

The $1 million in overall funding will go to 25 institutions of higher learning across North America to support science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) educational programming. These grants help achieve DENSO’s goal of exposing students to the careers available in manufacturing

This investment round was led by ST Engineering Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital unit of ST Engineering. Radiflow’s existing investors, led by Zohar Zisapel, also participated in this investment round.

Working together, the two companies will help manufacturers and other businesses to help deploy solutions for monitoring and control, industrial automation, asset tracking and field service operations.

To be held at the Hyatt Regency , from 7-9 August 2018 in Bethesda, Maryland, the event will include briefings by American Water Works Association (AWWA) and Water Environment Federation (WEF) officials, training opportunities, and a vendor exhibition that will showcase new products and services.

DPL is using Honeywell Connected Plant UniSim Operations to train process operators on safe startups and operations.

Performance measure for pipeline leak detection are generally taken to be sensitivity (the size leak that can be detected), specificity (the certainty that a detected event of some kind is actually a

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Recent security breaches have demonstrated the continued dynamic evolution of cybersecurity as vulnerabilities in both software and hardware continue to be identified. Consequently, it is increasingly imperative that cybersecurity is designed into the system components and overall design…and people will want proof of that.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Recent security breaches have demonstrated the continued dynamic evolution of cybersecurity as vulnerabilities in both software and hardware continue to be identified. Consequently, it is increasingly imperative that cybersecurity is designed into the system components and overall design…and people will want proof of that.

Doyle will assume responsibility for the HEIDENHAIN CORPORATION customer-focused operations for the U.S., Canada and Mexico. This change will complete the succession plan for Rick Korte, current CEO of HEIDENHAIN CORPORATION who will be retiring.

The two companies will leverage each other’s technology and industry resources to build a unique IoT solution to support Industrie 4.0, China’s manufacturing upgrade and transformation and other industrial Internet initiatives.

Safety Instrumented Systems: A Life-Cycle Approach by Paul Gruhn, PE, CFSE, and Simon Lucchini, CFSE, MIEAust CPEng, leverages the performance and documentation requirements defined in the ISA/IEC 61511 functional process safety standard.

This eBook confronts the trend toward engineering designs comprising a high percentage of procured-in content, and the organizational issues of cross-functional coordination especially between engineering and procurement.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation Blockchain is changing the finance industry, and there is potential for it to revolutionize other industries too. This article explains how Blockchain can revolutionize manufacturing.

Digital Factory will feature software and wireless technology innovations, digital twin, production monitoring and control systems, IT security and more solutions for the entire production process. The specialty area brings together a high concentration of industrial technology market leaders on Level Two of the East Building in McCormick Place co-located with IMTS 2018.

Key insights on how feedforward control often simplifies to ratio control.

SYSTEMATIX developed a VGR solution. Using a discrete distance measurement sensor, a Cognex In-Sight 8000 vision system with PatMax RedLine pattern-search capability mounted on a vertical slide, and a 6-axis robot, SYSTEMATIX built the work cell.

This document explains the advantages of Sequential Function Chart, SFC. This is a very expressive graphic formalism of the IEC 61131-3 standard. It is not considered a programming language as it needs other languages to express transition conditions and actions.

The strategic partnership will focus on promoting standardized intelligence manufacturing in a cooperative effort to support Made in China 2025.

Alper’s July 18 presentation, entitled “Cybersecurity: Tips, Tricks, and Tools to Keep You S.A.F.E.,” will focus on the growing trend of cybercrime, threats specific to CPA firms, and what firms should be doing to avoid becoming a cyber victim.

The IERA Award highlights and honors the achievements of innovators with value creating ideas and entrepreneurs who propel those ideas into world-class products.

Work on energized electrical conductors and circuit parts, including voltage testing on panelboards, or other equipment rated 240V and below would be classified as Hazard/Risk Category 1.

OPMT is a company based in Fo’shan – of Guangdong Province – in south China. For its latest project, OPMT was asked by Guangdong University of Technology to develop a machining center that combined high speed laser cutting and milling capabilities.

The link is an element of the country’s transmission system and is used as an energy-balancing system, between the two islands. ABB Ability MACH control system, which acts as the brain or nerve center of the link will be a key component of the upgrade.