Articles and News

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Connecting the manufacturing plant floor with the business enterprise through a single, open network has been an elusive goal in today's automation industry. Many industrial automation people believe that TSN will become a high volume, low cost technology with adoption by automotive and consumer industries

AbraxSys announced the enhancement of the operating and storage temperatures for its industrial and sunlight readable outdoor LCDs. Operating temperatures as low as -22°F and as high as 176°F in some models.

The AMT board of directors, which represents more than 600 builders and distributors of machine tools, manufacturing machinery and related products, named Ronald S. Karaisz II to serve as Chairman.

The St. Louis, MO-based contract manufacturing and metrology company has expanded its manpower and footprint to the Wichita-area to serve manufacturers who require services from product design to quality control.

By Rick Delgado, Freelance Automation Writer It used to be that automation was only available to larger businesses because of the cost or software involved, but a new wave of innovation has brought automation tools specifically designed for all sizes of businesses that make it more accessible to even the newest ventures,

The dead band is the range through which an input signal may vary, upon reversal of direction, without initiating an observable change in output signal.

Elenion Technologies’ silicon photonic optical engines enable communications for Data Center Interconnect (DCI) and Telecom markets. The collaboration extends capabilities to enhance onboard optical transceivers for intra-data center applications.

APEM’s historical presence and reputation will help accelerate IDEC’s growth in Europe. IDEC’s leadership position in Japan and across Asia will open new markets for APEM products, and help to support existing APEM business across Asia.

Teel Plastics was inspired to find a solution that would allow operators to control all pieces electronically and reduce human error. They ultimately found that Kepware’s IoT Gateway for KEPServerEX provided the way to control all the essential components.

The globally-active company submitted a record 273 patents in 2016. Around three-fourths involve level, flow and analysis measurement technology, followed by digital communication and instrument diagnosis.

By Peter McDermott, MDI According to research from Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute, 2 million manufacturing jobs are likely to go unfilled over the next decade. Tapping into the myriad abilities of people with disabilities can be part of the solution.

By Michael Risse, Vice President, Seeq Corporation These five types of people often hinder big data analytic projects, but recognizing their characteristics can make them allies instead of enemies.

Statseeker's downloadable whitepaper provides insight into the digital transformation that IoT technology is bringing to manufacturers. The paper will cover IT/OT convergence, big data collection, and more.

The IAMD show comprises production, process and energy automation systems; robotics; industrial IT; hardware and services; production technologies and services; transmission and fluid power components and systems; pneumatic and hydraulic systems; plain and rolling bearings; geared motors; linear technology; and sealing technology.

Stacks, chimneys and other gas handling equipment can take all sorts of forms depending on the application, but a common element is the need for effective temperature measurement of the gas at various points in chimneys.

The combination is intended to result in a comprehensive offering for customers of industrial automation, by pairing B&R's products, software and solutions for modern machine and factory automation with ABB’s offering in robotics, process automation, digitalization and electrification.

With so many variables, including furnace pressure, air-to-fuel ratio and controller stability, Anchor Glass knew it needed a new control system to better manage furnace operations. To help design the new system, Anchor Glass turned to Stone Technologies, a Rockwell Automation Solution Partner and member of the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork program.

The devices feature a multi-touch screen and are suitable for installation in the front of the control cabinet. The user can choose between different performance classes and display sizes ranging from 7.0 to 21.5 inches.

Verizon’s Cat M1 network is built on a virtualized cloud environment which enables IoT solution deployment and nationwide scaling aimed at increasing IoT adoption for developers and businesses with new and more economical IoT data plans.

The goal of the strategic advisory board is to explore and secure new growth opportunities for Seegrid’s vision guided industrial solutions.

Aventics makes a move to expand its business beyond pneumatics in order to offer the market both pneumatic and electronic systems and components in response to customer demands.

Industrial pervasive sensing devices lower energy requirements and reduce maintenance costs.

The PartnerNetwork program is designed to help industrial companies better solve their production and automation challenges by working with an expansive network of suppliers, distributors, system integrators, and machine and equipment builders.

The company’s expansion in Japan is designed to strengthen its existing relationships with key clients in financial services and other sectors, as well as expanding partnerships with global consulting firms and Japanese system integrators to explore new business opportunities.

RPA Express lets customers automate the manual work of integrating Citrix, Oracle, SAP and other vital core systems by eliminating the “swivel chair” tasks of entering credentials, navigating application interface, and performing core systems functions.

Prior to joining Konrad USA, Mr. da Silva was Director of Engineering at Apple, Inc – Cupertino, California and before that he was Vice President of Operations at Siemens COM, Inc – San Diego, California.

By Ola Lennartsson, Axis Communications For a long time, physical security was strictly analog, and it’s only connection to the IT network was at its end point. But now, now that IP-based security systems are becoming the norm, with all the associated benefits, both IT & OT professionals need to be aware that the game has changed.

Teledyne DALSA will feature its BOA Spot ID advanced barcode reader and latest innovations in thermal imaging in booth #459 at Automate 2017

By Matt Smith, Cortet Engineering This article will help readers navigate through the deluge of IoT information and identify which technology choices will have the biggest positive impact on upcoming product plans.

The podium discussion on 25 April, “High-Level Research as Innovation Motor in Germany”, addresses the importance of science and STEM education for the further economic, industrial and innovative development of Germany.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Connectivity is the name of the game in today’s IIoT atmosphere and ODVA is the latest to join the push for open communication standards. ODVA’s Common Industrial Cloud Interface (CICI) Special Interest Group is working on enhancements to ODVA specifications to connect CIP (Common Industrial Protocol) protocols, EtherNet/IP & DeviceNet with cloud applications.

Successful leak detection depends on a productive confluence of several situationally dependent technologies.

The postal recognition technology of Prime Vision will complement Delft Robotics to apply robots based on 3D machine vision using deep learning.

Open Systems International, Inc. (OSI) has been awarded a contract by Great Lakes Energy (GLE) for a SCADA and Distribution Management System (DMS) based on OSI's monarch (Multi-platform Open Network ARCHitecture) platform.

Dr. Wade—who has more than 50 years of experience designing, applying and installing process control systems—says the updated edition builds upon the real-world experiences and process knowledge of engineers and technicians to demonstrate the application of successful regulatory control strategies and techniques.

By Travis Schneider, Parker Hannifin To increase the chances for success in these collaborations, clear ongoing communication between the motion supplier and OEM customer is critical. The following guidelines are crucial in any engineering collaboration of this type.

Elite can access the platform’s fire and gas control system remotely from its headquarters in Livingston, Scotland. As a result, the automated control systems used to operate Chirag operate and allow production to continue without interruption

With the 2016 North American robotics market breaking all-time records in orders and shipments, according to the Robotic Industries Association (RIA) survey, OptoForce looks forward to playing a role in the automation of North American manufacturing initiatives.

Model predictive control excels at dead-time dominance and simultaneous optimization while accounting for future prediction of proximity to constraints.

The collaboration is designed to offer customers enhanced features, coordinated system-wide control, and data integration from legacy SCADA environments to new enterprise-wide solutions.

The second annual Global Day of the Engineer, presented by DiscoverE, is a one-day event that unites individuals, engineering employers, educational institutions, governmental bodies and engineering associations, all of whom pledge to join in celebrating engineers and engineering.

This location will serve as center of operations for the Festo North American executive management team, as well as marketing, finance, technology, human resources, and other corporate functions. All employees from the current Moreland Road location will relocate to its new location on Motor Parkway.

Based at the Singapore office, he will oversee all areas of a business that is seeing demand for precision engineering services from industrial and manufacturing sectors, and recently opened a new Thailand office in Bangkok.

Automation technologies will be at the forefront at Automate 2017, including the fast-growing segment of collaborative robots that are designed for safe, collaborative use alongside human workers.

Rockwell Automation will be showcasing the technologies, solutions and services that can help companies successfully and securely take advantage of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) at Hannover Messe 2017, April 24-28 in Hannover, Germany.

The meeting event, “Pharmaceutical Cybersecurity Convocation: A Critical Executive Dialogue,” will be held at the Sheraton Framingham Hotel & Convention Center in Framingham (Boston area), Massachusetts, in conjunction with ISA’s Food & Pharmaceutical Industries Division (FPID) Symposium.

By Jorgen Saxeryd, ABB In 2014 in the UK, a large food manufacturer had to pay a £800,000 fine after a serious industrial accident. This article explains how safety procedures must be developed in food processing plants.

The video shows how Okuma distributor Gosiger went into the control and created a GUI interface so the Moser operators don’t even see the OSP controls, or have to call up any programs at all. The app also provides safeguards so the operators can’t crash the machine tool.

Festo named AWC to distribute process automation products in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.

In the role of CEO, Mr. Mori will be responsible for all day-to-day business operations in North America. Mr. Mori began his career as an engineer, helping implement systems projects for Yokogawa customers all over the world.

Product experts will be on hand, and product demonstrations, inducing a Fanuc 6 axis robotic arm featuring the igus triflex RSE cable retraction system, featuring lightweight triflex R multi-axis cable carrier.

How to develop a proper control system for separation of multiple batch components by vacuum stripping.

The FieldComm Group Plant of the Year is an international award presented to end user companies in the process automation industry to recognize the exceptional and valuable application of FOUNDATION Fieldbus, FDI and / or HART Communication technologies.

The companies are leveraging their expertise in the field of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), sensor fusion, Hardware in the Loop (HiL), V2X communication, GNSS simulation and data management to provide a one stop solution for fully autonomous vehicles.

ABB Drives and Controls was lacking a component information management system with a centralized database for their Printed Circuit Board Assembly (PCBA) components and the mechanical parts that included PCBAs. They selected Omnify Empower PLM

Part of the Honeywell Connected Plant intiative, UniSim eLearn is hosted in the cloud and revolutionizes access to operator training simulation (OTS). It’s a key tool in delivering effective operator competency management.

The project aimed to test the feasibility of developing an integrated data platform for Chester city centre. The focus was on linking a novel air quality network of low cost wireless sensors with the traffic management within the city centre to alleviate air pollution ‘hot spots’ caused by queuing traffic.

Operating independently from Productive Robotics, Inc, Cobots Guide will advocate for the collaborative robot industry to encourage broad knowledge and acceptance of collaborative robots in manufacturing and non-manufacturing practice, education and public policy.

The Bedrock controller is part of an integrated plantwide SCADA system. Users connect to that system via Ignition software from Inductive Automation. Ignition is an industrial applications platform that coordinates control and data acquisition for all plant PLCs and remote transfer units (RTUs).

For supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) in its vegetable oil and grain plants, Adams uses Ignition by Inductive Automation. Ignition is an industrial applications platform with fully integrated tools for building SCADA, manufacturing execution system (MES), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions.

For more than a decade, the company’s 305,000-square-foot production facility in Hammond, Wisconsin, had been experiencing voltage sags several times per year that disrupted its largest production line. To get a better grip on the voltage-sag problem, Loparex installed the Allen-Bradley i-Sense and i-Grid intelligent network system from Rockwell Automation on its largest coating line.

By Arun Ananthampalayam, Honeywell Process Solutions Whether you are a tool builder or an application developer – if your software needs to access automation data, you may want to implement OPC UA connectivity to ensure your system can access data via the world’s most popular, standards-based, open connectivity solution. The question is: How to best do this?

GKN, a manufacturer of automotive driveline products, was seeking an end-to-end traceability strategy and discovered the Argonaut system from RedViking

HighJump’s cloud solution is designed to simplify each step of the supply chain while assuring levels of service through system uptime, response time and security.

Closed Loop Input Error (CLIE) approach for on-line parametric estimation of a continuous-time model of a DC servomechanism functioning in closed loop.

By Bernhard Erdl, PULS GmbH The fourth industrial revolution is extremely power-hungry. Due to increasing networking and continuous information exchange in production technology, power requirements as well as the importance of machine availability are ever increasing.

By Christoph Frodl, PULS Train travellers and commuters want one thing above all else from the railway: Reliability. This expectation is also passed on by the railway company to its suppliers, right through to the manufacturers of individual components, such as power supply units.

Mustard is featured in an online article—posted by PLASTICSTODAY—that promotes the presentation he will be giving next week at the Advanced Design and Manufacturing conference, to be held 29-30 March at the Huntington Convention Center in Cleveland, Ohio.

The European Southern Observatory based in Garching, Germany, is relying on displacement measurement systems from Micro-Epsilon for a project to build the world’s largest mirror telescope in Chile, which also involves French cooperation partner Fogale. The inductive sensor systems used for displacement measurement determine the position of each single mirror segment in three axes to nanometer accuracy.

One of the project’s objectives was to consolidate global R&D activities into one location. The engineering center houses additional test and inspection equipment, particularly for moving applications as well as for extreme temperature climates.

Officially launching to the North American market at Automate 2017 in April, On Robot’s two-finger RG2 grippers—available in both single and dual versions— mount on the arms of cobots without any external wires; for robots that have infinite rotation of the last joint.

A butterfly valve has a circular body and a rotary-motion disk-closure member. The physical blocking mechanism in a globe valve is a plug.

At interpack 2017, May 4 to 10 in Düsseldorf, Germany, visitors to the Rockwell Automation stand (hall 6/stand A61) will see the next generation of smart solutions that can help manufacturers build systems to support these demands.

The presentations will speak of the benefits Seeq customers are realizing in the oil & gas, pharmaceutical, chemical, energy, mining, food and beverage, and other process industries.

RobMoSys (Composable Models and Software for Robotics) is an €8 million Innovation Action involving 9 partners from 5 countries and will be carried out over four years.