AHR Expo towers above the rest
By Bill Lydon, Automation.com
The 2008 AHR Expo, held in New York City, January 22-24, shattered attendance records with over 39,000 attendees. The latest in “green” products, trends, technologies and solutions were featured with an array of new, energy-efficient, products on display from more than 1,800 companies around the world.

Building Manufacturing Efficiency
Control Engineering Europe
March 2008
Today, many pharmaceutical plants typically operate at somewhere around 30% efficiency, with a few world-class operations reaching the 70% range. The Pfizer facility in Puerto Rico formed a cross-functional team to focus on creating more competitive costs through implementing an OEE data gathering and reporting system.

Control Technology for Future Generations
By: Ron Bernstein, Executive Director, LonMark International
The concept of a control networking architecture, which provides fair competitive bidding on all levels of a system and over the life of the system, is something the user market has been demanding for years. LON and other network protocols, such as BacNet, ModBus, and Zigbee, have been developed to deliver on this need

Put Lightning in the Ground
Design News, January 2008
By Jon Titus, Contributing Editor
Contrary to popular belief, you don't need a direct strike to turn expensive instruments or sensors into junk. Lightning within a few kilometers of equipment can induce destructive voltages and currents on conductors. You can do a quick cost-benefit analysis to determine what to protect and how to protect it.

Browse these and more articles and white papers on the Building Automation portal.

QC Industries publishes Conveyor Selection Guide -
The six page brochure serves as an introduction to QC's line of low profile conveyors

Schneider Electric opens Industrial Solutions Center
ISC provides solutions, engineering support, consulting and project management services to manufacturers and industrial customers.

General Monitors opens Fire and Gas Systems Web Site
Site provides overview of fire and gas system designs, applications information, a SIL (Safety Integrity Level) resource center, how-to articles, answers to frequently asked questions and more.

Dwyer Building Automation Web Site
Site contains info on Building Automation and HVAC systems, grouping products together by application, including Water Cooling Systems, Boilers, Air Quality & Control, Test Equipment, and Sensing & Signal Processing.

BACnet Web Site
Provides the latest information on BACnet data communication protocol for building automation and control networks. Developed under the auspices of ASHRAE, BACnet is an American national standard, a European standard, a national standard in more than 30 countries, and an ISO global standard.

Browse these and more resources and literature on the Building Automation portal.

Pfizer uses Nalco in water system overhaul
Control Engineering Europe
February 2008
Pfizer claims to have boosted efficiency and control of its cooling and boiler water systems at one of its plants in Cork, Ireland. Nalco’s 3D TRASAR technology was installed on all cooling systems to monitor and control the chemical dosing and operational parameters for each system via stress management.

Finns drive for smart buildings
Control Engineering Europe
January 2008
A local government building in the Finnish city of Tampere has networked variable speed fan drives into its heating and ventilating system during a major refit of the 40-year-old building.

Building control system uses LonWorks
By Lonmark International
Floor controls are linked via a LonWorks network, using Siemens LMEC gateways onto a BACnet system which handles the interaction with the central AHU, boilers and chillers.

Nuremberg Exhibition Center
With Nexa from Citect, the Nuremberg Exhibition Center has integrated and optimized facilities systems from multiple vendors, protected existing facilities investments and reduced building automation costs.

Roppongi Hills Mori Tower
Japan's largest redevelopment project improves tenant service, reduces operation costs and optimizes energy utilization as a result of using Nexa from Citect. This is the worlds largest OPC project and includes over 300 OPC servers, 500,000 tags, and 750 graphics pages, with response times of <1 second.

Browse these and more application stories on the Building Automation portal.

Maintenance Planning and Scheduling
April 7-9, 2008 Bentley, WA, Australia
Learn the exact practices and methods, the requirements and the systems for the best maintenance planning and scheduling results.

Burner Management Systems Engineering
April 10-11 2008 Research Triangle Park, NC
Systems for the safe start-up, monitoring, and shut-down of boilers is covered with emphasis on single and multiple-burner boilers. Causes of furnace explosions and ways of avoiding them are discussed. The relationship of burner management systems and boiler control systems is explained. An understanding of boilers and boiler control is assumed

Failure Prevention, Defect Elimination and Error-Proofing Your Operation
April 15, 2008 Bentley, WA, Australia
Human error is the greatest single cause of production and maintenance problems. Learn how to reduce human error by orders of magnitude with new failure prevention techniques of the Accuracy Controlled Enterprise. Learn to write great future successes into your procedures.

Enterprise Asset Management, Reliability and Maintenance Mastery Course
April 16, 2008 Bentley, WA, Australia
Discover new facts and details that reduce your production costs and wastes, get utmost throughput, and make higher production productivity inevitable.

Lean Your Production with Industrial Business Process Management Webcast
April 16, 2008 11:00 am EST
With industrial BPM, you can improve, eliminate and automate steps. Digitize your workflows and close the loop on performance with actual process execution data. And, empower your workforce by integrating people and their roles – customizing individuals’ work styles and decision making.

Browse these and more training and seminar opportunities on Building Automation portal.

• ControlAir introduces Type-300 Gulf Buster Filter Regulator
• Eaton releases Pulsar UPS
• Anver releases VT140 vacuum lifter for shrink-wrapped goods
• Reliable Controls releases MACH-ProSys building controller
• Raycap releases Strikesorb surge protection devices
• Gordon Kapes announces Model 135 Site Monitor
• Anver introduces Bottle Grabs pick-up heads
• Toellner introduces Stainless Steel Belted Conveyor Systems

Browse these and more Product Announcements on the Building Automation portal.

Search Products by keyword, category, manufacturer or release date.

Lonworks says facility control getting integrated
The industry is certainly moving away from isolated system control towards more integrated solutions, but “Total Facility Control” seems like a stretch.

FKI Logistex Forms Solutions Development Group  
This team operates as a systems integrator and specifies, installs and commissions all FKI Logistex and third-party products and services involved in supply chain solutions.

Carey Miller joins DLT&V as director of engineering
Based in Las Vegas, Miller will be responsible for managing engineering activities and representing DLT&V’s services in Nevada.

GRSI opens office in Dallas-Fort Worth  
GRSI has opened a new central U.S. regional office in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. GRSI supplies warehouse integration systems.

Contemporary Controls joins BACnet International
BACnet International is an organization that encourages the successful deployment of this protocol in building automation and control systems through interoperability testing educational programs, and promotional activities.

Browse these and more company and organizational news on the Building Automation portal.

NAS and ISS win contracts with Johnson Utilities and Tharldson Development
Intecon Controls, Inc. Announces Contract With Johnson Utilities Worth $890,000.00; Intuitive Systems Solutions, Inc. (ISS) Announces Contract With Tharldson Development for $142,000.00

Opto 22 upgrades Ballarat Health Services facility controls
By Opto 22
Ballarat Health Services is upgrading its older Opto 22 faciltity controls, an installed base of 17 controllers and 2700 I/O points, to new Opto 22 Mistic and SNAP Ethernet I/O modules, brains, and controllers.

Schneider provides electrical distribution and building controls in Antarctica
The Princess Elisabeth scientific research station will encounter temperatures of -40°C and be under remote control for four months of the year.

OptiDyn compressed air system saves energy for Cooper Bussmann
Cooper Bussmann's Juarez factory will save $147,000 yearly with the installation of a PLC-based Compressed Air Management System (CAMS).

ABB to maintain Koverhar steel mill in Finland
ABB will assume overall responsibility for Ovako Koverhar's maintenance. About 70 employees will transfer to ABB.

MARTS 2008
April 14-17, 2008 Rosemount, IL
The Maintenance & Reliability Technology Summit. The premier event for Maintenance and Reliability Professionals. Sessions cover all major maintenance
and reliability technology sectors.

Metering, Billing/CIS America
April 20-23, 2008 San Diego, CA
From strategy to technology, this is the only place where all aspects of advanced, smart and automatic metering, as well as customer management and service, are covered.

International Conference on Thermal Treatment Technologies
May 12-16, 2008 Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
The conference will provide a forum for the exchange of state-of-the-art technical information on thermal treatment technologies for waste.

Facility Decisions
September 16-17, 2008 Las Vegas, NV
Facility Decisions is a new, free two-day trade show and educational conference for facility professionals who are responsible for the management, operations, maintenance, design and construction of non-residential buildings.

Plant-to-Enterprise Conference
September 21-23- 2008 Orlando, FL
MESA 2008 conference will focus on how plant-wide information systems support five key strategic corporate initiatives – lean manufacturing, quality and regulatory compliance, product lifecycle management, real-time enterprise, and total productive maintenance.

Add an event to our calendar.

Rick Zabel
Vice President, Publisher
Automation.com

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