White Papers

This white paper examines commercial energy use, specifically in buildings. Energy is the largest operating expense in commercial buildings, requiring approximately one-third of the operating budget.

The annual ThreatLabz Ransomware Report tracks trends and impacts of ransomware attacks, including encryption-less extortion and growth of ransomware-as-a-service.

See how all of Jacob Vehicle Systems' new assembly modules are fully IIoT capable, in both automated and human-operated lines, with CAI ShopVue MES and its Direct Machine Interface.

What's new with flaring in 2023? This white paper from will teach how improving flare accurary can alleviate reporting problems.

Technology and analytics can boost the overall resilience of the system, enabling companies in energy-intensive segments to get power from different sources in a seamless and cost-effective manner.

This paper discusses carbon capturing technologies, specifically CO2 capturing from flue gases using different amine solvent formulations (IECM 2019). Selecting the optimum solvent will benefit the final set up of a digital twin.

With increasing interest in connecting OT (operations technology) to IT, MQTT has been called upon to connect not only sensors and actuators in the field but also edge devices, SCADA systems, IoT gateways and more.

Advances in smart technology allow manufacturers to connect pneumatic systems to the internet, facilitating automation and transmitting data in real time. Learn how connected pneumatic circuits can benefit operations through greater efficiency, improved productivity and reduced machine downtimes.

Moving data within different levels of factory automation is easier said than done. For brownfield projects, the current data exchange method is often through proprietary protocols resulting in data silos. This whitepaper highlights how MQTT can bring data interoperability and help modernize smart manufacturing.

Read this report, Impacts of Cyberattacks on IoT Devices, to learn about how modern IoT attacks affect your devices and your network.

With increasingly interconnected systems and exponentially growing quantities of data, industrial operations must consider not if a cyber attack will occur, but how to respond when it does.

This next-generation process controller is a real alternative to the complexity and difficulty of tuning conventional controllers.

In this white paper, you’ll learn why it can be a good idea to push gearmotors beyond 60Hz. You will also learn how to break the 60Hz barrier safely and effectively. Finally, we’ll walk through a common example that will show you how to select the proper gearmotor for a wide speed range.

In the past few years, the convergence of OT and IT has moved from curiosity to necessity in just about every industrial sector. Demands for improved efficiency brought on by the possibilities of Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0 are compelling management to find better ways to extract value from OT data.

This Readiness Guide provides the foundation, the necessary steps, and the path for each utility to achieve those essential insights that lead to an efficient and optimized utility.

This white paper covers the criteria to make an informed decision and shows how Cisco helped one manufacturer standardize its operational network in factories across the globe.

This report examines the importance of data to the digital transformation of manufacturing and the ways the right tools and a data-driven culture can enable predictive maintenance.

This Automation.com 2020-2021 Automation Salary Survey report will explicate data collected in mid-2021 about the salaries and work lives of automation professionals across the globe in various industries and stages of their careers.

Created for automation vendors, “Getting your TSN product to market” provides a practical insight on how to implement the technology and the importance of conformance testing for TSN products.

This white paper illustrates the supply chain disruptions that are lowering the competitiveness of our combined industries and hindering our members’ U.S. manufacturing capabilities.

Trantek Automation, a machine builder specializing in robotic welding systems, was facing a challenge connecting information technology (IT) systems with production machinery. The tManager Enterprise Appliance Transaction Module provided a solution. With this innovative appliance in place, TranTek Automation quickly delivered a plasma cutting robotic system that could communicate with its customer’s enterprise database without having to write any code.

The ISA Global Cybersecurity Alliance explains Security Risk Assessment for Design in a new whitepaper.

A new report from Fortinet focused on operational technology found that insider breaches increased by over 100% in the past year and that industrial organizations continue to grapple with immense security challenges. The full 2021 State of Operational Technology and Cybersecurity report is available for download.

How FDT 3.0-based solutions help industrial personnel work smarter, faster, safer and more effectively.

Participants in a recent global survey of nearly 300 manufacturers recognized the importance of smart manufacturing for agile decision making, process automation and greater efficiency. This study from Plex Systems, in collaboration with Hanover Research, explores how manufacturers can use technology to address today’s challenges and take advantage of long-term opportunities.

Conducted in Fall 2020, the Automation.com 2020 salary survey reflects the early effects of pandemic-related economic upheavals for engineering, business and technical professionals in manufacturing and industry.

This paper explores the benefits and limitations of the stepper servo control technique, also called closed loop stepper, and explains why it is attracting serious attention from machine designers.

This special report from Smart Industry features expert perspective from OSIsoft principals and partners on a range of topics in the world of digital manufacturing—from smart strategies to evolving processes to operating your plant as an innovation hub.

The whitepaper outlines why organizations need to move beyond IT/OT convergence to ensure full integration—for enterprise security.

In "Eliminating Friction," VP of Business Development Dave Westrom explains that the true cause of failure is the lack of getting to value quickly. After all, time is money, and the more time spent trying to launch a successful IIoT initiative, the greater likelihood it will fail.

Organizations need data-based energy management solutions to succeed in the era of digitalization, says a new ABB whitepaper.

To empower development teams to fulfill their objectives across the development cycle, it is important to consider a whole solution approach toward instrument selection.

This paper explores how Martinshof Werkstatt Bremen is empowering workers with handicaps to excel operating manual workstations, which are indispensable, despite advancing digitalization.

This paper uses a modified version of the Golden Circle, changing the original sequence to Why-What-How to approximate how organizations currently operate and thereby increase the chances of achieving the relevant UN SDG.

To develop insight about how organizations are keeping up with the changes and transformations taking place throughout the industrial sector, the Digital Transformation Council and ARC Advisory Group, in conjunction with ISA and Automation.com, conducted a survey of industrial companies. This white paper summarizes the results of the survey.

Collaborative automation has become a versatile,cost-effective, and user-friendly technology that allows businesses of almost any size (and any level of technical expertise) to increase productivity, improve quality, and respond more nimbly to changing customer demands.

Written for all IIoT stakeholders, the white paper explains why measuring the efficiency and efficacy of industrial digital transformation solutions across industries is essential.

Distributing water on a large scale has been a challenge that the world has tackled for decades. It is a particular challenge in high-rise buildings, and with a trend for designers to build up in urban areas, rather than out, it is a challenge that has become a new focus for design engineers.

This paper discusses the challenges faced in route planning and how existing algorithms are largely insufficient. It also discusses how the use of a hybrid heuristic method derived from the combination of straight line heuristics and real road distance metrics presents the best solution to solving the challenge of planning efficient routes at high speed for last-mile deliveries today.

The robotics revolution is rapidly accelerating, as fast-paced technological advances in automation, engineering, energy storage, artificial intelligence, and machine learning converge. The result will transform the capabilities of robots and their ability to take over tasks once carried out by humans.

When it comes to non-contact continuous level measurement, radar and ultrasonic are two of the most common technologies used. This paper will compare and contrast 80 GHz radar sensors with ultrasonic transmitters for liquid and solid level measurements.

The two types of non-contact level radar, Pulse Level Radar and Frequency Module Continuous Wave (FMCW) Level Radar have been widely used throughout the process industry.

This white paper is focused on helping readers understand in detail the Open Industry 4.0 solution reference architecture framework for interoperability. It provides a dive deep into key design principles of its members defined and supported end to end solutions

Position sensors and motors are crucial components in oil and gas equipment and must operate day in and day out in some of the most challenging conditions.

With the manufacturing sector facing a bleak outlook in 2019, we thought it prudent to share our projections for the growth and development of the programmable logic controller (PLCs) market in key countries and industries, calling out specific bright spots and those set to suffer more deeply.

As data, connectivity, and processing power expand, so do opportunities for industrial companies to extract value through innovative products, services, and business models. This McKinsey study delves further into how technology delivers value to today's industry.

Originally developed for audio speakers, voice coil actuation technology is now being used to provide precise and reliable motion control for a wide range of medical, industrial process and space applications.

Engineers designing systems for industrial and factory applications are adopting functional safety design practices to reduce the risk of system failures that could result in costly damage or injury.

Self-regulation or legislation does not stifle innovation at all. It steers the internet in the right direction. It is just an example, albeit a very important example, of market feedback for engineers and innovators to develop the right products.

If you have a ControlLogix PLC being used as the MCS, how can you make use of the OPC UA MDIS spec and bypass the old Modbus integration to the DCS? Softing has developed an OPC UA MDIS compliant server module that inserts into the ControlLogix chassis and creates the OPC UA provides a framework that can be used to represent field devices, for example.