Articles and News

Currently under construction at Sohar, the US$638 million Sohar Fertiliser Project of Sohar International Urea & Chemical Industries SAOC (SIUCI) includes a 2000 mtpd (metric ton per day) ammonia plant, 3500 mtpd urea synthesis and granulation plant along with related utilities and offsite facilities. It is one of the world’s largest private sector greenfield fertilizer projects and is being built under an EPC contract by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) of Japan.

With this acquisition, Schneider Electric will get significant access to low voltage installation and control systems market in Germany, which is the largest in Europe. Merten products will enable Schneider Electric to complete its ultra terminal offer with a comprehensive and complementary range of wiring devices and home control solutions. In 2005, Schneider Electric generated revenue of €1,2 billion in Ultra Terminal.

Electronics Workbench Corporation announced that DesignSuite 9 is one of the top three products of 2005, according to readers of Elektronik magazine, one of Germany’s premier electronics publications. The circuit design software suite, which was competing against 10 other products, received second place in the 2005 Product of the Year CAD/CAE category. DesignSuite 9 is a collection of four Electronics Workbench products – Multicap 9, Multisim 9, Ultiboard 9 and Ultiroute 9 – that, together, create a tightly integrated, end-to-end solution engineers can use to efficiently take electronics projects from initial concept through capture and simulation to final layout and production.

The NI LabVIEW Embedded Development Module was named a co-winner in the Digital Control/Embedded Computing category. NI SignalExpress 1.1 interactive measurement software and an NI CompactRIO dynamic signal analyzer (DSA), cRIO-4408, were named runners-up in the Analog Control and Digital Rapid Prototyping Tools categories, respectively.

DeltaV OTS is a complete simulator-based learning environment designed to prevent operator error which can result in accidents, product loss, or costly plant shutdowns. The need to prevent operator error was recently confirmed by a study of chemical manufacturers which indicated that 37% of plant incidents could be categorized by incorrect operator actions.

FANUC Robotics America, Inc. was named a preferred supplier of industrial robots by PACCAR, Inc. Since 1998, FANUC Robotics has installed robotic painting systems at PACCAR’s North American Assembly plants and a chassis painting system at PACCAR’s Leyland Truck Plant in England.

The Green Hills Software presentation will provide an overview of systems software technical requirements for use in next-generation in-car digital infotainment applications and explain how virtualization architecture provides an ideal solution to these varied requirements, while still minimizing size, weight, power, and production cost – a strict business requirement for automotive systems. The virtualization architecture will be described in detail, focusing on how it addresses the stated requirements and why it is a promising new technology in this space.

Located in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), the Habshan complex is one of the largest gas processing plants in the world. The expansion is designed to process an additional 1,306 MMSCFD of condensate-rich gas at the Habshan complex. The new systems will be used to monitor and control all gas wells and remote manifold stations associated with the Habshan complex. This includes replacement and expansion of existing SCADA systems with the latest Foxboro SCADA technology.

Designed to optimize system stiffness without sacrificing life or increasing drag torque, these nuts can be used in conjunction with HSI's existing line of linear actuators or as a standalone product along with HSI's extensive selection of Acme lead screws. HSI has developed a patent pending method of preloading the threaded nut halves to provide a system that maximizes system stiffness while reducing drag torque.

ISA announced today that its Executive Board has approved the establishment of The Automation Federation as an umbrella organization under which associations and societies engaged in manufacturing and process automation activities can work more effectively to fulfill their missions. It will coordinate the work of member organizations engaged in advancement of the science and engineering of automation technologies and applications.

The unique GE Fanuc and Symbion solution allows for unprecedented production connectivity, data collection and analysis and provides a solid foundation for companies seeking to better understand and improve their processes. Symbion Systems brings a wealth of knowledge of the process and Life Sciences industries and a deep understanding of analytical instrumentation and process analysis software.

The Fieldbus Foundation today announced that Shuzo Kaihori, vice president of Industrial Automation Business Headquarters for Yokogawa Electric Corporation, has been named to its board of directors. Mr. Kaihori replaces board member Teruyoshi Minaki, who has served on the Foundation¹s board for the past two years.

Request the free, full color, 100 page, 2006 B&B Electronics catalog of Interface Converters and Data Acquisition and Control Products. Your catalog will be on its way to you via First Class mail within 24 hours.

ProSoft Technology’s inRAx product line provides in-chassis protocol interface modules, flow computers, open solution modules, FLEX adapters and Drive adapters for Allen-Bradley® platforms.

The test kit has been updated from previous versions with additional functionality enabling the testing of FOUNDATION field bus devices employing current Device Description (DD) 5.0 files. The Fieldbus Foundation's ITK 5.0 test kit verifies the functionality of an H1 (31.25 kbit/s) device and its conformity with the FOUNDATION fieldbus Function Block and Transducer Block specifications.

The Working Group is the next step in the previous announcement by the Open Applications Group and ISA-SP95 to converge their standards for manufacturing interoperability by working to support the OpenO&MTM Initiative. This group will develop an industry guideline that defines generic business process models between the operations management and business layers of the manufacturing support system.

The EPA program facilitates the deployment of innovative environmental technologies in the industry through evaluation and verification of product performance and effectiveness. The Rosemount Analytical Model WQS multiparameter water quality monitoring system was evaluated along with four other water monitors. Not only was the performance of the model WQS verified by the evaluation, but the system required no scheduled operator maintenance during the testing.

The 6-axis KUKA robot is fitted with an end of arm tool to create a 7 axis ladling robot to be used for pouring molten metal. The robot’s 7th axis gives it an additional 360 degrees of rotation allowing it to pour the molten metal consistently and then clean the ladle of leftover oxide waste by inverting the ladle to remove the waste.

Morley's address is titled "The Future of Automation: Where Does the Road Lead?" and will offer insights based on three decades in the industry. He will provide insight on the future of automation and control, and how professionals can take advantage of evolving technology. "My mission has always been to think in terms of the future," said Morley. "By anticipating the next big waves of technology, we can not only survive, we can shape the future of the industry."

Effective April 1, 2006, Ellison Technologies will be solely responsible for the sale and distribution of Mori Seiki equipment in Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky, Missouri and Nebraska, relinquishing the sales of all other competitive equipment. Effective April 21, 2006, Ellison will assume the same responsibilities for Wisconsin, Illinois and Iowa.

Approximately 1,000 automation and information projects at more than 700 locations have been successfully delivered by the extensive network of Wonderware-certified system integrators. These solutions use the latest ArchestrA technology and extend across supervisory control, distributed SCADA, production management and performance management.

Intergraph Corporation today announced that Bateman Engineering N.V. (Bateman) has chosen to standardize on Intergraph’s SmartPlant® Enterprise to replace its existing AVEVA PDMS design tool. The agreement, made through Intergraph distributor Intergraph Systems Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd., will form the foundation for a more data-centric and integrated plant design modeling environment.

Dr. Kletz is a chemist turned chemical engineer who spent 38 years working for the successful British company Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). He started at ICI in the research department, and went on to production management and later became the safety adviser to the petrochemicals division. He is currently a Visiting Fellow and a Visiting Professor at Loughborough University in England and at Texas A&M University.

The basic concept is to help Advantech expand their “service oriented” business approach. Recognizing that on-line services are becoming a greater player in the businesses of today, Advantech has added this new feature and made it available to registered customers of their eAutomationPro website.

Dick Morley is best known as the father of the programmable controller. He is a leading visionary in the field of advanced technological development. He is an internationally recognized pioneer in the fields of computer design, artificial intelligence, automation, and technology trend forecasting.

The sessions will continue ISA's industry-leading standards development work. The meeting will build on several recent achievements by ISA-SP84 that have provided significant advances in safety across the process industries. Most notable was the publication in late 2004 of ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-2004 Parts 1-3 (IEC 61511 Modified), "Functional Safety: Safety Instrumented Systems for the Process Industry Sector."

The LXI Consortium today announced that Geotest-Marvin Test Systems Inc. has joined the standards organization as an advisory member. LXI (LAN eXtensions for Instrumentation) is a next-generation, LAN-based modular platform for automated test systems. As a leading global supplier of PXI- and PC-based test products, systems and solutions, Geotest expands the growing number of test and measurement companies supporting and promoting the LXI standard.

Cognex Corporation announced that it has served a complaint against Acacia Research Corporation and Veritec, Inc. The complaint was filed in the United States District Court in Minnesota. Cognex is seeking a declaration that U.S. Patent 5,612,524, which claims to cover a system for reading 2D symbology, is invalid, unenforceable, and not infringed by either Cognex or by any users of Cognex products.

The module, available free to educators, provides more than two dozen application notes, case studies and training articles, a PowerPoint presentation with speaker notes, and a poster illustrating common thermography measurements. The Fluke Education Partnership Program combines a wealth of educational materials and application information with product discounts.

This allows Fluke to conduct comprehensive testing for compliance to EN61010-1 (the IEC standard for safety compliance for Test and Measurement Equipment), EN61010-031 (the IEC standard for handheld probes assemblies) and EN61001-2-032 (the IEC standard for current clamps). VDE (The Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies), headquartered in Germany, was founded in 1893 and has evolved into one of the largest technical and scientific associations and well-regarded regulatory agencies in Europe.

Intelligent Instrumentation was established in 1984 as an independent subsidiary of the former Burr-Brown Corporation in Tucson. When Texas Instruments purchased Burr-Brown in 2000, III (or I-Cubed) became a subsidiary of Texas Instruments.

InduSoft has certified more than 20 hardware platforms since last year. Lab certification tests prove that InduSoft Web Studio HMI/SCADA software runs on a wide variety of Windows CE-based hardware platforms from ABB, Arista, Advantech, Beijer, Bosch-Rexroth, ESA, Pilz and Maple Systems, and ARM, MIPS, Power PC, SH and S86 processors.

Listening to the needs of Internet users, Parker Electromechanical Automation has devoted considerable energy to make using its Internet site as easy, efficient and productive as possible for OEMs, machine builders, distributors and end-users. For example, the division recently implemented the Google search engine on parkermotion.com, and Google is powering the site's frequently asked questions and part-number databases. This gives users of the Web site a dramatically enhanced search capability and makes finding product information, documents, tools and other information faster and easier.

Jonathan Knowles will share how Autodesk customers are standardizing on DWF technology and benefiting today. For example, Siemens L&A, the world’s leading supplier of logistics and factory automation solutions, switched from distributing paper-based drawings to Autodesk digital design collaboration processes. Doing so, Siemens L&A had streamlined access to design information to more than 1,700 employees including shop floor personnel, upper management, and external suppliers; drastically reduced the design approval cycles to less than an hour, rather than three days; and decreased manufacturing errors, such as parts being built to the wrong spec level.

Emerson announced it has acquired Bristol Babcock from FKI plc of Loughborough, England, for $121 million.

The 3rd Annual Gadget Freak Workshop Competition, hosted by Design News and sponsored by Allied Electronics, challenges engineers to assemble simple – and not so simple – electronic circuits. The Gadget Freak Workshop Competition runs daily during the show. The National Design Engineering Show and Conference, which will be held at the Donald E. Stephens Convention Center, is the only national event for OEM design engineers.

This program leverages the key elements of our Northern regional user group meeting that has caused it to grow to over 100 attendees per year. The many years of experience and responses from customers has helped us to shape it into meaningful informational day-and-a-half workshop event. This year, we have adapted this model and created additional events in East Chicago, Houston and Las Vegas. All four events are open to any Bristol Babcock product users or engineers who specify or design systems using our products.

Bill Greer, Senior Product Specialist at Contemporary Controls, created this blog to share his thoughts, experiences and insights on this ever-popular technology. Subjects discussed may range from simple to complex to those that challenge at the outset but appear fascinating to our team of engineers once a conclusion has been drawn.

Green Hills Software, Inc. announced that Jack Greenbaum, director of embedded software engineering for Green Hills Software, will present at the Multicore Expo 2006 in Santa Clara, California, on the topic of: A new breed of debugging: addressing the requirements of multicore ARM/DSP processors. Last month, Green Hills Software announced the support of its MULTI integrated development environment (IDE) for DaVinci™ technology from Texas Instruments Inc. (TI) for both DSP and ARM cores, and is also the only embedded tools vendor that supports multi-processor, multi-operating system, multi-threaded, multi-language systems, all from a single environment.

PAS, a leading provider of advanced automation solutions, announced Cory Engel, Vice-President and senior executive at Matrikon, has joined the leadership team at PAS with immediate responsibilities for all of the Americas solutions sales. Mr. Engel brings tremendous experience in the sale and delivery of software solutions for the process industries, having established Matrikon in the US and eastern Canada – regions accounting for nearly half of all Matrikon’s global sales.

This year Danaher Motion, one of the world's leading providers of drive technology, will again be represented at the Hanover Fair. This time the focus is on system control and system solution expertise from the Danaher Motion Group. In Hall 14, Stand J24, Danaher Motion will present its new SERVOSHAFT software package for simplifying system programming together with an animated, multi-axis system, which consists entirely of our own components.

ISA has recently released a fully operational free online demo of its Certified Automation Professional® (CAP) Learning System. The system is a comprehensive CAP exam preparation and professional development tool. The program combines printed textbooks with online review and testing tools to provide automation training.

Fletcher’s 2-hour talk, called “How Vision Sensors Are Being Applied to Improve the Quality of Formed and Fabricated Metal Parts” includes plenty of stories and pictures from the shop floor, including hole, burr, and slug detection. Fletcher will discuss how to determine if an application is a good candidate for a vision inspection and how to select the right sensor, lighting, and lens.

Intergraph Corporation announced that the American Red Cross presented the Company with the Circle of Humanitarian Award, the organization's highest award honoring financial assistance, for its support of disaster relief efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The award was presented by Rick Cantrell, executive director of the Madison/Marshall County Chapter of the American Red Cross, and received by R. Halsey Wise, president and CEO, Intergraph.

Indacomp specializes in custom automation applications for a variety of industries. The transaction will bring Indacomp into the Litzler Group as Litzler Automation. Litzler Automation will serve existing Litzler customers with high quality drives and control systems and existing Indacomp customers with expanded automation solutions.

The company, Egypt's only manufacturer of carbon black, installed the new line to meet increased demand for its carbon black products which are used in the manufacture of tires, rubber products, plastics, inks, dyes and paints. The Alexandria Carbon Black Company is the fastest growing carbon black producer in the world with over 90% of production being exported to companies that include Goodyear, Michelin, Bridgestone, Pirelli, Dunlop and Continental Tire.

National Instruments Director of Product Marketing Eric Starkloff will deliver a keynote address to design engineers and industry experts at the D2M 2006 conference, co-located with the Embedded Systems Conference, in San Jose, Calif., on April 5. In his keynote address, “Making Test Disappear: Leading Examples of Transparency between Design and Test,” Starkloff outlines a vision of software-based virtual instrumentation that can drastically reduce test development time.

At Inductive Automation, our integrator program is the core of our business. We believe that our integrators are doing us a service by promoting our software to their customers. We understand that it is only through your hard work and skillful implementation that the quality of our software shines through. Being born from a system integration company, these philosophies have guided Inductive Automation since its inception, and are most apparent in our integrator program.

Mitsubishi Electric is continuing on its growth course, with the Industrial Automation division posting double-digit growth figures throughout Europe in all product categories. At the 2006 Hannover Messe trade show the company is going to continue the product offensive started in 2005, presenting a wide range of new products in strategically important sectors.

Under the umbrella of Factory Automation, the leading trade fair for production automation, "Automation Live" is becoming one of HANNOVER MESSE's strongest draws. Together with Volkswagen AG and other renowned technology partners, Deutsche Messe AG will present visitors with a live demonstration of innovative applications in automobile manufacturing in Hall 17.

LXI certification indicates approval by the LXI Board to officially license the LXI logo for display on compliant products. Agilent is now shipping a variety of modular and compact instruments within five product families: modular power system; DC power supplies; digital multimeters; and multifunction switch/measure unit. Elgar achieved certification for two programmable DC power supply families.

The 16th Annual Joint ISA POWID/EPRI Controls and Instrumentation Conference and the 49th Annual ISA POWID Symposium will be held 4-9 June 2006 at the Doubletree Hotel in San Jose, California. The theme of the symposium is Effective Integration of Safety, Security, Reliability with Control Systems: Measurement and Control Challenges and Solutions for the Power Industry in the Changing Economic and Regulatory Environment.

For a limited time only, organizations that currently use a competitive EAM solution can trade in 50% of their existing EAM software seat licenses for Avantis.PRO licenses at no charge. This free license trade-in is coupled with an attractive fixed price implementation (including data migration), and a cost-effective support plan to provide a complete, low-risk solution.

This strategic partnership will enable PSI and Norpak to further penetrate the United Kingdom’s mail, catalog and internet order fulfillment markets with PSI’s patented packaging automation solutions: Autoslip, Print Feeder and Print Feeder DF in addition to patent pending systems: LC IN-Feeder 3000, PDFS, and APPS.

Automation professionals around the world are invited to submit an abstract for the ISA EXPO 2006 Technical Conference Program to be held on 17-19 October 2006 in Houston, Texas. Abstracts are selected based on topic area and presentation category. Topic areas for the event include safety and security, environmental and quality control, industrial networking, process automation, and systems integration.

PackAL will be added to the OPW Guidelines for Packaging Machinery Automation. An updated version of these guidelines is scheduled to be released in April. PackAL is an application library of common software elements used in packaging applications that was developed by the PackSoft subgroup of the OPW. The application library is made up of twenty-three functions. Thirteen functions are machine functions, such as wind/unwind, dancer control, registration, and indexing.

Attendees will receive an introduction to the WAGO-I/O-SYSTEM hardware, overview of Industrial Ethernet components and protocols, hands on IEC 61131-3 programming session with live demo PLCs, and review/create web services or applications (such as alarm emails, web pages, etc. from the controller.

The symposium covers all aspects of process composition analysis including analyzer technologies such as chromatography, spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, chemical analysis, physical analysis methods, sample systems, and gas and liquid sensors and detectors. The symposium also covers the practical use of these technologies and explores maintenance, systems integration, safety and networking and communications.

The Invensys implementation for Cheniere’s TOMS project will employ a system architecture that integrates Invensys and third-party software solutions to support the supervision and management of the Sabine Pass LNG receiving terminal, with scalability to accommodate additional terminals. Invensys will provide consulting, software products, and a range of integration, implementation, testing and training services, all of which will leverage Invensys’ extensive expertise and experience in the global LNG industry.

Application Engineers from the many companies will be on hand to demonstrate their products and answer all your technical questions. The Automation Fair/Technology Expo is an open tabletop show format with individual Classroom Presentations. Individual appointments with specific suppliers can be arranged by calling ahead at TOLL FREE (877) 737-8698. Refreshments will be served throughout the day. See the following latest product technologies on display...

Intermec's IF5 RFID reader, which is being used in the METRO Group Future Store in Rheinberg, Germany, is the first production-scale integration of IBM's WebSphere RFID Device Infrastructure software on an RFID reader. This potent combination of hardware and software provides early data filtering, to minimize network overload, correlate RFID events and integrate RFID event data with enterprise applications.

The company has eliminated cadmium as well as lead from all of its devices - and does not require the benefit of the period of grace that the EU has granted the industry on the use of cadmium in switch contacts.

The committee will be formed to create a standard that adopts the generic language specified by IEC 61804 to describe the properties of automation system components. The specified language is capable of describing device parameters and their dependencies, device functions, graphical representations, and interactions with control devices.

The newly elected ODVA officers are: President: Doug McEldowney; Executive Director: Katherine Voss; Treasurer: Steve Freedman; Chief Technology Officer: Rich Harwell; and Secretary: Katherine Voss. Elected representatives for the Regular Membership include Dave Dodds and Steve Freedman on the ODVA Board of Directors and Jörgen Palmhager on the ODVA Technical Review Board.

Green Hills Software, Inc. announced that CMC Electronics Inc. has selected the Green Hills Software Platform for Avionics, including the INTEGRITY-178B real-time operating system (RTOS), GSTART Ravenscar compliant Ada kernel and AdaMULTI development environment, for CMC’s Flight Management Control and Display (FMCDU) system. The Green Hills Platform for Avionics will also be utilized for the development of a CMC Electronics Aircraft Management System product line, featuring PCI open system architecture.