Articles and News

Conditions encountered by pipelines in the U.S. are diverse and the complexity motivates broad and cautiously general requirements. This is not the case at the borders of all sovereign nations. Diverg

By Benson Hougland, Opto 22 Traditional industrial networking methods have proved workable but difficult to implement. The next generation of communication technologies may work to ease implementation while addressing security concerns.

One focal point of the collaboration is to increase the availability of all assets in a plant and to give personnel on site decision-making tools for their work. The objective is to make the plants more reliable through products and services and to be able to predict developments in the condition of a plant’s assets.

All lifecycle costs should be considered over the entire expected life of a project, with all costs calculated on a net present value basis.

Housed in a glass-clad building, the 400-kilovolt (kV) Länsisalmi substation plays a key role in Finland’s transmission grid. As part of the project, ABB replaced an outdoor air-insulated switchgear (AIS) installation with its gas insulated switchgear (GIS) technology, freeing up 70 percent of the space occupied by the old facility.

The certification recognizes the cyber security features of the ControlEdge RTU, which is used for remote automation and control applications such as wellhead monitoring in the oil and gas industry

The alignment of AspenTech and Microsoft’s technology and expertise is intended to deliver on the IIoT promise to connect assets, measure their performance and improve business outcomes.

The certification recognizes the cyber security features of the ControlEdge RTU, which is used for remote automation and control applications such as wellhead monitoring in the oil and gas industry

Free for Aquicore customers, the mobile app helps property and engineering teams to access up-to-the-minute asset intelligence. The mobile app also streamlines direct, day-to-day communication among asset managers, property managers and building engineers, enabling them to receive alerts, directly message their teams, contact customer support and receive updated building consumption reports.

By Sean Robinson, Novotek UK & Ireland Over the past five years, the industrial sector has begun to see the value in digitalisation and has invested more in adopting it. This article explains how plant managers can make proactive maintenance even more effective with machine learning.

By Vivek Joshi, Entytle The Digital Revolution has already disrupted media, finance, consumer products, healthcare, and other sectors. Manufacturing leaders can’t (and shouldn’t) escape it.

Listen to Greg McMillan's lessons learned the hard way during a 40-year career in process control industries. Many of the mistakes made in the field are still being made today, some posing safety risk

TT will provide Precision with customer and market access in Europe and Asia, supported by a global Field Application Engineering team and distribution network. TT’s operating footprint will provide manufacturing and supply chain capabilities in Asia to support customers in region.

The 2018 Integrated Industries Conference takes place on Tuesday, September 11 during IMTS 2018 and covers three major educational topic tracks: Motion, Drive, and Automation; Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)/Industry 4.0; and Integrated Industries.

By Nigel Smith, TM Robotics Many industries have already made the jump to automated processes. However, it’s only been in recent years that the food and beverage industry has begun to truly explore what automation and robotic technology has to offer.

The industrial automation and control system (IACS) community must recognize the value of the ISA/IEC 62443 IACS family of cybersecurity standards.

By George Walker, Novotek Plans to integrate digitalization across the globe have led many governments to set-out initiatives to accelerate the rate of adoption over the next 10 to 20 years. This article explains why businesses should be looking to digitalize their systems sooner rather than later.

A bridge rectifier consists of diodes in a bridge circuit configuration. It features the same output polarity for either input polarity, and is used for converting an alternating current (AC) input in

By Stephany Romanow, Industry Consultant Because of the ever-changing business environment, O&G operators can no longer thrive, or even survive, by relying solely on yesterday’s technologies. They must reinvent themselves to be competitive within the marketplace and remain attractive to investors.

OMV will use the Honeywell Connected Plant's Process Insight Reliability Advisor to continuously feed plant data through Honeywell UOP process and fault models, and to provide performance information and process recommendations.

According to the International Federation of Robotics, more than 3 million industrial robots will be in use in factories around the world by 2020. This means that the operational stock will more than double within seven years

Reliable wireless high temperature electrochemical sensor technology is needed to provide in situ corrosion information for optimal predictive maintenance to ensure a high level of operational effecti

The Nymi Band is a multi-factor biometrically authenticated wearable that is worn by shop floor workers to perform day-to-day authentication tasks, such as digital signatures within an MES.

By Christopher Ealahan, Teguar Computers The factory floor can be an unforgiving place for equipment, especially when it comes to electronics. Very few of these devices make it out of the plant intact or have a long operational life. Here are five factors that any industrial user should look for in their search for the right tablet computer.

Honeywell will provide licensing, the process design package, proprietary and non-proprietary equipment, on-site operator training, technical services for startup and continuing operation, and key catalysts and adsorbents for the project.

IO-Link is being used in a wide range of applications as an open standard for smart sensor I/O, primarily for discrete devices. IO-Link is a point-to-point network communications standard and protocol

Recently, there have been several efforts to apply and adapt standards developed for one sector or industry to others. ARC Advisory Group expects this trend to continue as industry groups, suppliers, and asset owners strive to optimize their response.

Once completed in 2020, Siemens intends to purchase batteries from the factory, making Northvolt a preferred supplier. Siemens will support the partnership through an investment of EUR 10 million.

By Robin Whitehead, Boulting Technology Many systems that have been retrofitted for compatibility with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are not well protected. This article explains the top considerations to ensure cybersecurity when retrofitting a system.

Together with member companies, the Machine Vision, Integrated Assembly Solutions and Robotics groups are developing vendor- independent information models: In this way, the machines will speak the same language in the future.

By Eric C. Cosman, ARC Advisory Group Recently, there have been several efforts to apply and adapt standards developed for one sector or industry to others. ARC Advisory Group expects this trend to continue as industry groups, suppliers, and asset owners strive to optimize their response.

When fluid drops below a liquid's vapor pressure, a gas is formed. As fluid moves downstream to where the fluid pressure is greater than the vapor pressure, it "collapses" back into a liquid.

As part of the project, Honeywell UOP will provide licensing, design, key equipment and catalysts and adsorbents. When completed in 2022, the complex will produce 1.2 million metric tons per year of paraxylene used to make plastic resins, films and fibers

More than 800 soldiers, airmen and civilians from across 40 US states and territories participated in Cyber Shield 2018 at Camp Atterbury in Indiana

Terms of the deal were not disclosed but GCG has stated that HiSonic’s operations will remain in Olathe, Kansas. In addition to Olathe, GCG has four other production facilities located within the United States.

By Jakob Björklund, IFS Manufacturers are beginning to see the value in integrating business software such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). However specialist Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) often do the same job as these supporting solutions, acting as an unnecessary middleman. This article asks the hard questions about whether MES is necessary in many industrial situations.

By Bryan Austin, Renishaw the European Union’s (EU’s) new Medical Device Regulation (MDR) could drastically impact the way that medical devices are made in the EU, particularly those that are produced using additive manufacturing (AM). This article provides advice on how companies in the additive manufacturing industry should handle the MDR.

The StarAudit certificate confirms that web-based services are based on specific security standards and have been correspondingly validated. This offers a traceable quality assessment of cloud services through a transparent and reliable certification process. The aim is to strengthen the trust of customers and users in cloud services.

In addition to the Experion Orion Console, the Leppävirta site will implement Honeywell’s Field Device Manager, which uses smart instrumentation to perform device configuration and management capabilities.

Radiflow’s industrial cybersecurity app for the Palo Alto Networks Application Framework is based on the company’s iSID industrial Intrusion Detection System for ICS and SCADA networks. The iSID system performs ongoing mapping of the industrial assets and alerts on any anomalies in their behavior.

The 2018 awards will be presented to Gudrun Litzenberger, the General Secretary of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), and Esben Østergaard, CTO and Cofounder of Universal Robots.

Instrument calibration in the process industries requires the proper process, tools and parameters for each instrument application to ensure valid results. If one of the three are lacking, your result

By Jason Andersen, Stratus Even as the anything-as-a-service (XaaS) model for operational computing gains popularity, many manufacturers are hesitant to make the move. This article explains what manufacturers can do to make the right decision for their business

Resembling more a bustling city than a trade fair, the 71st Hannover Messe was very busy and chock full of energy and innovation this year, with over 200,000 attendees from 75 countries. Focusing on the theme 'Integrated Industry – Connect & Collaborate', the Digital Factory was front and center.

By Bob McIlvride, Skkynet Cloud Systems Kaspersky Labs used common exploit-discovery techniques to identify 17 critical security flaws in the OPC UA software they were testing. There is no reason to doubt their methodology, but we all need to be careful about the conclusions that we reach.

On Thursday, April 26, 2018, Jürgen Köhler, Division Head of Digital Factory Germany, visited the INDEX Open House with a delegation to present the Siemens Award in the form of a glass cube with the hologram of a “Virtual Machine”.

Comprised of four participation levels – Elite, Premier, Authorized, and Referral – the Claroty Vision program provides partners with a range of tools and incentives such as increased margin, deal registration, an online demo environment, and co-marketing activities depending on their commitment and participation

Designed for implementing small touch pads and screens, the 2D Touch Surface library runs on a device’s existing MCU. This removes the need for a dedicated touch controller, giving product designers the flexibility to add finger position tracking and gesture detection, such as swipes, pinch and zoom, to products.

Within this connected digital ecosystem, information is gathered directly from elevators and escalators via smart sensor technology. Data is then sent to the cloud where it's aggregated and analyzed, and delivered to customers and Otis' dedicated service teams, all in real-time.

CoaXPress 2.0 extends data transfer rates to a 10 Gbit/s (CXP-10) and 12.5 Gbit/s (CXP-12) per connection from the existing standard's 6.25 Gbit/s maximum data transfer rate support.

With more than 550,000 developers driving innovation on the platform, businesses have access to technology to connect and automate what matters most to their operations.

The OPC Foundation is committed to addressing all issues as they arise, to working with OPC vendors to ensure that software is patched, and to notifying OPC users about the issues and the fixes.

Articulated robot arms require high levels of accuracy from their rotary joints to perform assembly processes correctly. Without the correct bearings, this precision cannot be maintained.

Industry sectors with critical real-time control requirements are constantly integrating commercial off-the-shelf technologies into their automation systems. Industrial automation end users are demand

At Safety 2018, Steve Ludwig, program manager at Rockwell Automation, will present “Four Ways Safety Engineers Can Help Mitigate Security-Related Safety Risks.”

The Executive Conference featured 26 workshops and sessions, as well as several special events including the third annual CSIA Fun Run/Walk, area tours, the annual Industry Expo, and the Awards Dinner.

At zero gauge pressure in the steam line, you are essentially suppressing (pushing) the transmitter output back down to zero after the system reaches equilibrium. The transmitter will read that impuls

Participants in the May 24, 11AM EDT webinar will learn about the structure and content of the international IEC 62443 control systems cybersecurity standards and the related ISASecure conformity assessment program.

The collaboration is intended to enable both companies to leverage their combined experience in this area, targeting to further improve the offering for CANopen, SAE J1939 and CAN/CAN-FD.

AWS Greengrass, part of the AWS IoT offering, allows users to run local compute, messaging & data caching for connected IoT devices. With AWS Greengrass, connected devices can run AWS Lambda functions, keep device data in sync, and communicate with other devices securely

The latest joint effort resulted in an advanced automation and industrial networking lab for undergraduate courses. The multi-workstation area includes Phoenix Contact’s IEC 61131 programming software, PC Worx, along with visualization software, 802.11 wireless, PROFINET networking, and distributed safety I/O.

The USTR’s proposal would place a 25 percent tariff on more than 100 product types within or adjacent to NEMA scope—as well as many other items that are inputted to U.S.-based manufacturing.

This combination of MES and RFQ software is intended to allow manufacturers to respond to changing customer and market demands.

The transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018 subject to regulatory approvals, finalization of necessary consultations and other customary closing conditions.

The survey included 17 questions about respondents’ geographic location; type of organization, industry, and lab; gender; job title; education and years of experience; salary; and workload.

The CSP Program consists of various IEC 62443-based IACS (Industrial Automated Control System) cybersecurity courses presented by exida Academy.

Automate America is a community of industrial automation contract professionals and companies. With more than 8,000 professionals and nearly 900 business contacts, Automate America helps ensure contract work gets done.

While serial bus systems will continue to play an important role in the future, solutions based on Industrial Ethernet are becoming increasingly common with Industry 4.0 applications. The focus is less on cable measurements, signal levels or signal shapes, but in the case of standards such as PROFINET, utilization and the greatest possible availability of the networks are the focus of interest.

Geographically diverse systems using integrated technology are inherently complex. A structured way of analyzing them can be very helpful.

NEXTSENSE specialises in solutions that enhance product quality in the automotive, railway, steel and aerospace industries. NEXTSENSE will be fully consolidated, operating within Hexagon's Manufacturing Intelligence division.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com At Hannover Messe 2018, it was clear that many in the computing industry are focused on implementing a holistic cyber security approach, encompassing the entire architecture including cloud, enterprise, and edge devices. This article will explore some of these efforts and explain how they are shaping the future of cybersecurity in industrial automation.

The hands-on, 40-foot, interactive showroom will travel to nearly 20 U.S. cities and educate customers about Eaton’s newest innovations for heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC/R), and pumping, process industry and machinery applications.

By Robert Glass, ABB Recently, Dutch supermarket chain Ekoplaza opened the world’s first plastic-free aisle in one of its stores in Amsterdam. More supermarkets will likely follow. Will food manufacturers will need to rethink their food packaging materials?

The Arduino Engineering Kit consists of three Arduino-based projects that teach students how to build modern electronic devices – challenging them intellectually and helping them develop physical engineering skills that will better prepare them to enter the commercial market following graduation.

Most managers in the process industries still look at maintenance only as a cost center, reducing operational costs in the maintenance department is often the first thing on their list. That puts a lo