Articles and News

By Rick Delgado, Freelance Automation Writer Threat hunting is becoming more and more popular in the business industry. When it is done correctly, the concepts, processes and strategies are of critical importance to the security of an organization.

Smart Industry Solutions India from 13 – 15 December 2017 in Mumbai will target end-to-end solutions that will address the needs of smart manufacturing. This new exhibition format will cover future factory, automation systems, technology and solutions, as well as hydraulics & pneumatics.

DS2 is a self-contained start-to-finish production facility for small and medium lathes, and grinders. This is the second smart factory built at Okuma’s headquarters, following the Dream Site 1 (DS1), which was completed in May 2013.

By Johannes Petrowisch, COPA-DATA Today, advancements in connectivity and the introduction of cloud computing are making monitoring industrial environments a lot more sophisticated. As we enter the era of the smart factory, this article will discusses the benefits of cloud computing for the manufacturing industry.

The competition – created to recognize and reward the high levels of innovation in the packaging industry – was split into five categories: ease of use, modular machines, smart machines, sustainability, and traceability and product safety.

The IPS Corpus Christi Service Center is one of seven IPS service centers supporting industry in the Gulf Coast Region including Houston, TX, Beaumont, TX, Sulphur, LA, Shreveport, LA, Birmingham, AL and Dothan, AL.

Telit IoT University, part of the company’s IoT Know How suite of consultative services, is designed to teach customers and partners how to succeed in launching IoT solutions that deliver measurable business outcomes.

Learn how to document “one-sided” calibrations, such as pH/ORP and gas sensors/analyzers. The approach can apply to meters, DCS and PLC inputs.

This recently completed extension offers an additional 25,000 square meters of space for offices and production, which brings the facility to a total of 74,500 square meters. Endress+Hauser Process Solutions AG, the competence center for process automation and digital communication, is also housed in the new facility.

Red Trident, an industrial control systems (ICS) cyber security and process automation firm focused on protecting critical infrastructure, has joined the Bedrock Automation Systems Integration Network.

The webinar, which will be held from 12PM to 1:30PM EST on 8 June 2017, will feature two calibration experts: Ned Espy, Technical Director at Beamex; and Roy Tomalino, Calibration Engineer at Beamex.

On May 11, President Trump and the White House announced a presidential executive order on the strengthening of cybersecurity efforts for federal networks and infrastructure.

ISA President Steven Pflantz says ISA members can learn from the bright, extremely motivated youth participating in FIRST and other STEM programs.

In the new "Arena of Digitalization" covering an area of more than 800 square meters, Siemens is now showing customers and partners how digitalization is used in metalworking and motor production and what results can be achieved with it.

By addressing risk in key areas, companies can effectively manage brand-critical safety, quality, security and obsolescence challenges at their source. An e-book outlining the four key areas of risk management is available on the Rockwell Automation website.

The new website is intended to form the basis for stronger digital interaction with customers. It is also part of a comprehensive, multi-year global digitalization strategy.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation With the introduction of driverless cars by brands such as BMW and Google, safety is being revolutionised through autonomy. But what can other industries learn from this? This article discusses how new technology and increased automation improves safety across sectors.

The specification provides device manufacturers with an official foundation to implement EtherCAT P technology, which enables data and power transmission on a single, standard cable.

The OPC Foundation European Certification lab has successfully been accredited and the first successful certified product was a Siemens RFID reader.

An all-time high total of 9,773 robots valued at approximately $516 million were ordered from North American robotics companies during the first quarter of 2017. This represents growth of 32 percent in units over the same period in 2016, which held the previous record. Order revenue grew 28 percent over the first quarter of last year

As the future approaches, next generation analytics and artificial intelligence technologies will support data and real time decision making at the point of production. This on demand webinar will discuss this evolution and how to protect the data and drive organizational success with IIoT

This most recent acquisition strengthens Ritter's commitment to providing engineered hydraulic and pneumatic products to its customer base in the greater Detroit area.

Transforming an industrial plant’s calibration system to a fully automated system.

An independent jury, with representatives from the research, business, and specialist media organization, awarded the 2017 golden manus trophy, along with a €5,000 prize to California based Pathway LLC for its design for manufacturing of the Airframe exoskeleton, developed by Levitate Technologies, Inc.

This business and technology will primarily support further development of Aventics’ commercial vehicle sector. In addition, VHtek technologies and the increased R&D capacities provided by the owners and employees of VHtek, will further benefit Aventics core sectors such as Industrial Automation, Life Sciences, Energy, Food & Beverage, and Railway Technologies.

Microsoft has provided, in conjunction with the OPC Foundation, an set of sample applications, inclusive of reference clients, reference servers, an aggregation server, an OPC classic wrapper and a web application to quickly display OPC UA telemetry data sent to the cloud.

Real-time optimization with a detailed process model is the best approach to fining the most efficient operating points.

Turck licensed U Grok It’s technology for its PD-IDENT handheld reader (Turck part number: PD-IDENT-UHF-RUG-MOBILE-860-960) in 2016, allowing customers to use their iOS and Android devices to track, control, and manage RFID applications. By investing in this technology, Turck continues to support the platform and development tools for both Turck and U Grok It customers.

The competition provides students, from grades 9 through 12, with the opportunity to use sophisticated software and hardware, learn from professional engineers, collaborate, earn recognition, and qualify for millions of dollars in college scholarships. In all, approximately 83,000 students on 3,336 teams from 25 countries competed in FIRST competitions during the 2017 season.

By John Murdoch, Alfacon Solutions At lower wages, it was more difficult to cost-justify the automation expense. Management could throw more labor at the volume issue. Now with much higher labor rates (not including health insurance, workers’ compensation, vacation time, and safety concerns), conveyor automation is axiomatic and needed more than ever before.

The Achilles Test Platform helps manufacturers of mission critical infrastructure solutions ensure that their products are less vulnerable to cyberattacks. The Bedrock SCC has achieved Achilles Level 2 certificatio

ANL Plastics is a European manufacturer of thermoformed plastic packaging products. ANL Plastics, headquartered in Wellen, Belgium, has three manufacturing plants in Europe, enabling distribution across the continent.

The awards were presented during ABB’s annual Robotics Value Provider Conference the week of April 4th in Chicago, IL. Accepting the awards were Ryan Okelberry, Co-owner, House of Design; Claudimar Bortolin, CEO, Torfresma Industrial; and Lance Guymon, Engineering Manager and Drew Akey, Project Manager, both of Wolf Robotics.

AES needed an expert integrator who knew the demands of recycling firsthand, with an engineering staff that could coordinate the equipment and automate the entire facility. Vecoplan, an industry provider of building and automating recycling technology, knew it could take on that project.

Exchange is a curated library of reusable IoT elements, including services, products and content, designed to enable industrial manufacturers to solve common IoT challenges

By Tom Gilheany, Learning@Cisco The manufacturing sector has the dubious distinction of being the second-largest target of cyber criminals; only healthcare surpasses it. This article discusses how this may shape manufacturing trends and regulations in 2017

The initiative is aligned around a common goal: the simplification and standardization of Industrial IoT edge computing, while still allowing the ecosystem to add significant value.

Aranda was presented with the award, which is worth 5,000 euros, at the opening ceremony of the WoMenPower conference by Yasmin Fahimi, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, and Deutsche Messe’s Managing Board Chairman Dr. Wolfram von Fritsch.

Logical & careful planning of loop testing strategies results in improved control performance without compromising plant quality, reliability, or safety.

Each year, ISA’s technical division symposia events bring together innovators, thought leaders and other automation and control professionals from around the world to explore the latest technologies, trends and best practices.

Of the show’s 225,000 attendees (up from 217,000 in 2015 as the most recent comparable event), more than 75,000 came from abroad. The next HANNOVER MESSE will run from 23 to 27 April 2018, with Mexico as its official Partner Country.

In a recent survey published by GBC, the keynote speakers of the IIoT and Digital Solutions for oil and gas conference (OMV, Eni, Petronas and Halliburton) have mentioned that the mind-set change in integrating the IT in the overall business strategy and the breakdown of cultural and technical silos will leverage the speed of the opportunities in this sector and will deeply transform the legacy operations.

The partnership enables device manufacturers to manage PKI certificates throughout the product lifecycle using the OPTIGA TPM, including support for certificate injection during device manufacturing.

Exosite’s combination of Murano and Exchange was designed to help industrial manufacturers like Parker develop a centralized approach to IoT implementation that focuses on standardization, reuse and internal collaboration.

In the first two years, the Chinese government will be inviting all manufacturing companies in South China to attend conferences, training sessions and networking events at the Robotation Academy.

The tech center shares the 75,000 sq. ft. facility with Toyoda’s Remanufactured Products Division (RPD). Dedicated much to the repairing and remanufacturing of machines since the 1970’s, RPD will continue to specialize in returning overworked machining centers to OEM specifications.

The Reshoring Initiative, an organization working to return manufacturing jobs to the USA, estimates that as many as one million jobs can be returned based on objective cost analysis.

Researchers propose a new adaptive neural network based control scheme for switched linear systems with parametric uncertainty and external disturbance.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com We've received a number of comments and questions from vendors about The Open Group's effort to push for open process automation standards. Tn the aim of encouraging more discussion on the topic, we're sharing some of these questions in order to provide some more clarity on its importance.

By Alan Grau, Icon Labs Just as societies without strong law enforcement result in higher crime rates and vigilante justice, lax security results in increased cybercrime.

Impulse lines connect the process to the pressure transmitter, to reduce the effect of ambient temperature on the transmitter's operability and life span.

More than 800 soldiers, airmen and civilians from across 44 states and territories participating in Cyber Shield 17 at Camp Williams in Utah

With this advancement of its web portal, solutions provider Eplan and the current 130,000 registered users will experience Azure Services like the Azure Content Delivery Network.

Designed to better serve Matrox software users located around the world, the on-demand Matrox Vision Academy expands upon the current classroom-based on premise training sessions to help users build out skill sets and knowledge on their own timeline and from their preferred location.

Ghana Water has invested in 40.000 Danish intelligent meters to help diminish the nation’s supply challenges. The project is the first of its kind ever carried out in Ghana

The target is to offer TSN as firmware upgrade to the users of netX technologies. Hilscher developed a firmware upgrade for TSN which can turn a standard real-time ethernet device into a TSN enabled device.

Cisco introduced three new solutions to the Connected Factory portfolio. Cisco Connected Factory is designed to bring the power of data across the manufacturing siloes of today.

Teledyne DALSA will highlight its configurable LWIR camera platform at the AUVSI XPONENTIAL in booth #1231. The exhibition takes place May 9-11 at the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas.

System design enhancements will bring a step change in compactness, with a potential to deliver 350 percent more power per square meter of space used – suitable in applications like offshore wind or interconnections, in terms of converter station footprint be it on offshore platforms or onshore installations.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation This article discusses the evolution of the programmable logic controller (PLC), and predicts what the future might hold for this crucial piece of equipment.

The Association for Advancing Automation (A3) announced that the Automate 2017 show and conference broke all previous attendance records with show attendance of 12,960 people, which is a 37 percent increase over 2015.

Hydro Ottawa transports power from the provincial electricity grid across a distribution network comprised of 85 distribution stations, 2,700 kilometers of underground lines, 29,000 kilometers of overhead lines, 45,000 transformers, and 48,000 hydro poles.

Novatio Digital Workforce is designed to automate repetitive business tasks while freeing companies’ human capital for more value-added activities.

The emerging frontier for industrial innovation points at exciting changes likely to revolutionize the business of manufacturing.

From Monday, September 25 (by exhibitor invitation only) to Thursday, September 28, truck and trailer brands and suppliers will be showcasing new equipment on the floor of the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

At the official ceremony held on the Tuesday of HANNOVER MESSE, fleXstructures CEO Oliver Hermanns was delighted to receive the prize in honor of its IPS ROBOT OPTIMIZATION software solution. Second place was taken by Mayser GmbH & Co. KG (Lindenberg, Germany) with eta|opt GmbH (Kassel, Germany) coming in at third place.

By Andy Owen, MasterMover While stability has gradually been restored in the years following the financial crash, the industrial sector continues to face an uncertain future. This is driven by what has been dubbed the skills gap. This article explores why the engineering skills problem is persisting — and what businesses can do about it.

With the integration of the OPC Unified Architecture Standard (OPC UA) into operation and control systems, both existing machines and new designs can be made IoT ready, and so can be integrated into the Smart Factory environment.

This collection is designed to deliver an optimized business operations solution to customers, allowing both companies to solve challenges across the oil and gas industry.

Online registrations are open to all hackers at www.blurrybox.com. The contestants will have three weeks to break the code and report their exploits for their chance to win €50,000.

Mentor provides a portfolio of solutions for the industrial market, with offerings that include the Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS) and the Yocto Project-based Mentor Embedded Linux platform.

Industry 4.0, energy and environmental technologies, vocational training, startups and direct foreign investment are among the themes that will feature prominently in Mexico’s 2018 showcase. Mexico is the first Latin American nation to ever present itself as a Partner Country of HANNOVER MESSE.

Johnson joined SYSCON in July of 2015 to head SYSCON-PlantStar and lead the startup of the new SYSCON Sensors division.

With TrendMiner, process and mechanical engineers and operators can identify trends in their processes, look for similar trends in the past, fingerprint operating windows, monitor behavior, send notifications to engineering or control room staff and predict deviations in live processes.

Feedforward provides preemptive corrective action for production rate and grade changes enabling key PID controllers to provide consistent product quality.