Articles and News

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor There is a great deal of discussion about DCS migrations and retrofits these days, raising questions that can be overwhelming for users. Suppliers offer upgrades from their legacy systems as well as upgrades from a competitor’s DCS. I interviewed industry veteran, Paul Galeski, to get his insights on this important topic.

The Electrical Safety Foundation International announced a workplace electrical safety awareness program developed to answer the question, "How do you know if your workplace is properly protected from electrical hazards?"

F&S says the European Market for Integrated Motors and Drives earned revenues of $285.3 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach $632.8 million in 2017.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The holistic integration from sensor to enterprise for manufacturing to be more competitive requires industrial automation technology that can create linkages to enterprise business systems. You can learn about new, crucial technologies at Industrial Automation North America.

Siemens will supply gas chromatographs, analysis cabinets and shelters, much of which will be manufactured by Siemens in the United States.

The 72-page, illustrated Motion and Automation for Test, Measurement and Inspection catalog includes examples of real-life motion control challenges and successful solutions for each.

Brochure highlights the actuators’ functionality, communication protocols and application compatibility.

Metso will supply stainless steel valve controllers to the Norwegian Goliat Floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) plant in the Barents Sea.

EFA Automazione will resell KEPServerEX and supporting products LinkMaster, RedundancyMaster and ClientAce.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Merson NFPA 70E is the standard for electrical safety in the workplace, and explains in detail how to prevent electrical hazards. The white paper identifies and explains some of the key changes.

RFM builds RF modules, SAW based and RFIC short-range radios, stand-alone radio systems, and platforms for M2M applications

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Accurate measurements are fundamental for automation and control systems to accomplish precise control. Based on my recent visit to Fluke's headquarters, I can assure you they are passionate about reliable measurements.

Since 2010, Niagara has enjoyed global growth, with an increase of over 150,000 deployments.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Sasan Montaseri, ITTIA What are the important characteristics for selecting an embedded database for an industrial automation system? What can a database offer beyond recovery from power failure, preventing data loss, or reducing flash media wear? What are the hidden costs when selecting an embedded database?

P&IDs should generally follow ISA symbols for the basic instruments. If you follow that symbology, most anyone can read and understand the P&IDs quickly.

Polytron is a systems integrstor based in Duluth, Georgia

The Society for Automation, Instrumentation, Measurement, and Control (SAIMC) joined the Automation Federation.

35% of industrial control system security incidents were initiated through remote access, and 65% of facilities allow remote access to their control systems.

The valve supply center is located in Vadodara, 400 km north of Mumbai in the state of Gujarat, where Metso’s service center has been in operation for more than two years.

Finding the interface between two liquids in a tank is critical for some processes. Modern level instrumentation can solve many level interface problems.

Most recently, he was EMEA Director Embedded Processing Marketing and Applications at Texas Instruments.

Catalog contains robot grippers, linear components with guide blocks and short-stroke cylinders.

Automation.com, April, 2012 By Jan Pingel, Rockwell Automation Machine-level historians are capable of capturing every event on a machine, at high-speed and at full resolution.

OSI was awarded a follow-up contract for a full-scale SCADA/EMS system at Suncor's oil sands plant in Alberta, Canada.

Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering and STX Offshore & Shipbuilding will use Honeywell’s Integrated Automation Systems (IAS) in five vessels.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Josef Schindler, Siemens Industry Describes how the Simatic Maintenance Station offers support for condition-based maintenance through plant-wide diagnostics in both continuous and discrete automated production processes.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The fundamental principal of root cause analysis is to use symptoms as clues to find the real source of a problem. This method requires analysis and/or testing to determine if something is a symptom or problem, but it can ultimately decrease the time to resolution.

Centroprojekt provides designs for major capital plant projects in the Pulp and Paper, Petrochemical and Chemical industries.

February U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $444.06 million according to AMT, up 9.3% from January and up 35.2% from February 2011.

The ADAM website features photo galleries and videos demonstrating the features and benefits of the ADAM AMR solution.

SYLVANIA is now authorized to design, install, commission and support Daintree’s ControlScope wireless lighting controls solution.

KLEENLine builds stainless steel material handling equipment that handle foods, pharmaceuticals, and other clean-room dependent products.

exida certified the STA logic solver to meet functional safety requirements for Safety Integrity Level (SIL) 3 capable per IEC 61508.

ISA introduced all new award categories to recognize both automation professionals and companies who are making a difference across the industry.

Steam temperature controls standard reaffirmed for 2012

Choosing an integrator for an industrial automation project is like choosing an architect for the house of your dreams – you can get almost any architect to build a dwelling structure, but the house o

SNAP PAC acts as a central controller that manages more than 180 interconnected onboard systems aboard director James Cameron's Deepsea Challenger submersible.

The company appointed Paul Lambert as its manager of regional sales for Europe.

A team from Central Dauphin High School, Harrisburg, Pa., won first prize in Phoenix Contact’s international xplore New Automation contest in Bad Pyrmont, Germany.

Banerjee joins ABB from Hewlett Packard, where he was Senior Vice President of Research and Director of HP Labs.

The Building Automation Systems Division was organized for building automation professionals who design, build, install, troubleshoot, operate and manage building automation systems, and who seek to a

Coastal Flow Liquid Measurement will resell and support Flow MD’s small volume provers (SVP).

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Ford's Powertrain Group has taken a complete systems approach to automation, driven by goals to improve operations, efficiency and flexibility. PROFINET has been an enabler for Ford's manufacturing architecture and became one of the tools used to achieve their goals.

Zettlex will develop lightweight but rugged position sensors for space applications for the European Aerospace & Defence Systems agency.

The Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) announces that 18 companies joined as associate members.

The order includes mechanical equipment and the upgrade of electrical control and drives for four mine hoists, and related engineering services.

Scholarships for Process Measurement & Control Students

Automation.com, April 2012 By Dan Roessler, AspenTech Mobile application usage in manufacturing is expected to continue to increase. Mobile applications provide users with production insight twenty-four hours a day and seven days a week regardless of their physical location. This expanded data access helps leverage expert resources and improve employee effectiveness.

F&S says electric drives earned revenues of €204.89 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach €313.14 million in 2017.

“Find an Integrator” searches for integrators who design, implement and test automation for numerous industries.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Sandvik Coromant, DMG / Mori Seiki USA, and Siemens PLC collaborated to replace multiple machines and cutting tools with intelligent design of a new method to accomplish gear hobbing using one machine and one cutting tool.

Trutegra, formally Nol-Tec Systems Southeast, provides automation solutions, automated crane controls, digital displays, energy and sustainability solutions.

EPLAN Data Portal 2.1 allows anyone to have viewing rights to the Portal to obtain part information via an Internet browser.

Sensors Expo takes place June 6-7 at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center in Rosemont, IL.

This edition provides in-depth coverage on Fieldbus communications and configuration, including calculation of macrocycle for Control-in-Field and in the host system.

Turbine flowmeter revenues are forecast to increase at a rate of 0.6 percent per year through 2016 to reach $427.5 million worldwide.

IEC 61804-6 report explains the requirements for field device integration and how they are met using the EDDL standard (IEC 61804-3).

Horta previously worked in water and wastewater facilities in Boca Raton, Palm Beach County, and Pahokee, Florida.

ABB will supply six 22 MW GMD systems for 27-foot ball mills comprising of transformers, ring motors and complete containerized electrical houses.

Advantage Partnership Program provides systems integrators with sales and product support for enclosures.

Meter Mix Dispense Systems brochure outlines dispensing equipment for bonding, sealing, potting, casting, encapsulation and more.

Lt. Col. Rob “Waldo” Waldman, also known as “The Wingman,” will provide the keynote address during the 2012 Automation Summit at the Renaissance Washington, D.C. Downtown Hotel, June 25-28.

Emerson will provide critical control valves to be used in two AP1000 pressurized water reactors at the Alvin W. Vogtle Electric Generating Plant in Burke County, Georgia, USA.

The actuators are approved for applications requiring CSA Class I, Division 2 Groups A, B, C and D certification—making them suitable for hazardous operation.

2012 AIChE Spring Meeting & 8th Global Congress on Process Safety

Look for an industrial systems integrator that can add value…not one that just does what you tell them. A good integrator will ask lots of questions so they fully understand your process.

Automation.com, March 2012 By Frank Dickman, Piping Design Consultants A simple industrial network security solution is readily available and being deployed to protect oil fields and transportation in Russia.

Conel is a manufacturer of reliable and secure wireless communications routers, gateways and devices that connect cellular networks to Ethernet, serial and other data networks.

Strain Solutions Ltd is using Micro-Epsilon’s thermoIMAGER TIM160 inline radiometric thermal imaging camera for thermal non-destructive evaluation (NDE) projects.

V1.3 specification broadens the functionality and the range of applications of the international Sercos real-time standard, while considering new trends in machine and plant construction.

The training software offers realistic operation and programming capabilities for milling, turning and drilling sequences, independent of any machine tool hardware.

The centre provides training courses for the selection, operation and maintenance of rolling bearings, as well as condition monitoring, vibration analysis and mounting of rolling bearings.

FEM-based tablet hardness and punch strength simulations in Optimus software revealed the best possible design trade-off between durability and ease of swallowing.

The Sercos robotic guitar is played by a system that interprets MIDI files using an MLP industrial control from Bosch Rexroth and bus terminals from Phoenix Contact to actuate a group of lifting solenoids via Sercos commands.

Automation.com, March 2012 By Mark Howard, Zettlex Resolvers are good. Encoders are good. But which is the best? This article examines the strengths and weaknesses of each and offers some alternatives.