The Year of .... OPC-UA
Control Engineering Asia, April 2008
The Chinese Year of the Rat also spells launch time for the long awaited OPC-UA specification, and the furry rodent actually has a lot in common with the latest version of the automation system interface standard.

Alarm management life cycle provides process insight
Plant Engineering, April 2008
By Prasad Pai, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms
As HMI/SCADA systems transition from being visualization tools to analytical tools, alarm management systems have gained importance and are now central to the success of an effective control system.

Yokogawa Technology Fair & User Conference 2008 Review
Our own Bill Lydon reviews the recent Yokogawa conference and includes highlights for those readers who were not able to attend. Keynotes were given by Gordon Bethune, former Chairman & CEO of Continental Airlines; Mike Brooks of Chevron and Rob Hoffman of the Idaho National Laboratory.

Drying Requires Functional Model
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing, April 2008
By Emil W. Ciurczak
Article reviews cases that show how PAT, mass spectroscopy, Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), are being used to change the way that drug manufacturers describe the drying process and how they are using that information to better control and optimize that process.

Advanced Tuning Tackles the Nonlinear World
Automation World, April 2008
By C. Kenna Amos
In a nonlinear world, the challenge of advanced loop tuning is to keep continuous and batch processes, as well as discrete operations, functioning cleanly and productively without unplanned downtime.

Browse these and more articles and white papers on the Process Control portal.

Free Electrical Design Trial Software
EPLAN improves the engineering design times, costs and quality of Electrical Control Systems, Fluid Power Systems, and Instrumentation & Control Systems.

Omron STI's 2007/2008 Machine Safety Engineering Guide
Omron STI's new 1500+ page 2007-2008 Engineering Guide to Machine and Process Safeguarding is now available. This two-volume set details Omron STI's complete family of machine and process safety solutions, and contains more than 225 pages of educational resource material.

AirSprite introduces WirelessHART OEM program
AccelerATE gives HART field device manufacturers a simple, quick, and low cost path to enable product lines with the WirelessHART specification.

Wurldtech introduces Delphi Cyber-Security Database
Vulnerability database for industrial control systems provides visibility into the reliability, safety and security of systems and networks.

With or without you?
By Bob Erickson, MatrikonOPC
White paper describes how Matrikon’s OPC server works with Honeywell’s TotalPlant Solution (TPS)/TDC 3000.

Browse these and more resources and literature on the Process Control portal.

Safety overhaul at Süd-Chemie
Control Engineering Europe, April 2008
Süd-Chemie installed a safety instrumented system (SIS) at its Bruckmühl, Germany plant. The system, certified by TÜV to safety integrity level (SIL) 2, is hoped to ensure the functional safety of the plant.

Even Better Than the Real Thing
Control Engineering Asia, April 2008
By Bob Erickson
OPC connectivity enables a legacy Honeywell DCS to take its rightful place as the cornerstone of a unified plant control structure.

Control performance supervision enhances revamp
Chemical Processing, April 2008
By Mikko Rönkä, Borealis Polymers Oy, and George Buckbee, ExperTune
Borealis upgraded an ethylene cracker, but issues such as control valve mechanical problems, poor controller tuning and instrument failures were undermining regulatory control. They installed PlantTriage performance supervision software from ExperTune. Within a few days, they uncovered a host of control system opportunities.

Hot oil, cool control
Intech, April 2008
By Ellen Fussell Policastro
Austral Pacific Energy in New Zealand installed programmable automation controllers to provide capabilities of a traditional DCS system, and manage thousands of discrete, process, and safety I/O points using a single platform.

Orlando Plant Pioneers HMI Migration Strategy
Control, April 2008
By Todd Stauffer, Siemens Energy & Automation
Air Products and Chemicals replaced three legacy operator consoles dating back to the early 1980s with Siemens PCS 7/90 OS HMI terminals. The plant kept the existing legacy distributed control system intact, including controller hardware, input/output (I/O) modules and field wiring.

Browse these and more application stories on the Process Control portal.

Safety Instrumented Systems: An Overview
May 20, 2008 West Virginia State Univ
Seminar includes: Understanding the requirements of international standards for safety systems; becoming familiar with the practices/procedures your company will need to implement; and learn the basics of how to design, implement and maintain cost-effective SIS solutions. Price: $495.

Introduction to Boiler Control Systems
June 12, 2008 Scottsdale, AZ
This seminar will give process control system engineers, managers, project engineers, operators, and technicians in boiler houses and power plants, a basic understanding of boiler operation and control. Price: $495

Basic Training -- Cybersecurity Style
Control, March 2008
By Dan Hebert
Four experts give advice on how to learn more about cyber security.

How to keep improvement continuous
Process and Control Today, March 2008
The Manufacturing Institute’s Accelerated Route to Lean Manufacturing program has provided hundreds of UK manufacturers with a rapid path to implementing and sustaining lean business improvement. Delegates learn the tools and techniques from high achieving lean manufacturing practitioners – applying their knowledge to tackling challenges and changing the culture at their own factory.

Browse these and more training and seminar opportunities on the Process Control portal.

• RTP enhances Critical Control and Safety System
• Yokogawa enhances ProSafe-RS Safety Instrumented System
• MTL announces HCS 8000 hybrid control system
• InduSoft increases security for Web Studio HMI/SCADA
• OAGIS releases version 9.2 with ISA95
• Matrikon announces NetKPI dashboard for process operations
• ControlAir introduces Type-300 Gulf Buster Filter Regulator

Browse these and more Product Announcements on the Process Control portal.

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

ABB Automation World held in Houston with record attendance
A record 3,300+ customers, distributors, channel partners, original equipment manufacturers and ABB employees attended the three-day trade show and conference that ran from April 29 through May 1 in Houston, Texas.

Moore Industries Celebrates 40 Years of Success
Still privately-held by founder and CEO Leonard W. Moore, the company has come a long way from humble garage beginnings when Moore designed and built the company's first electronic signal converters. Today, the company builds signal conditioners, temperature transmitters, fieldbus interface devices and much more.

HART companies push WirelessHART
Sean Keeping of ABB, Mark Schumacher of Emerson, Frank Hils of
Endress+Hauser amd Hans-Georg Kumpfmueller of Siemens offer their views of WirelessHART.

ABB first quarter net income up 87%
ABB's first-quarter net income reached $1 billion, an increase of 87 percent compared to the same quarter in 2007.

Invensys Mexico Opens Gas Operating Center
The new center at Reynosa City, Tamaulipas State, has all the resources necessary for Invensys to support PEMEX in the Burgos basin.

Siemens brings exiderdome traveling exhibit to U.S.
exiderdome consists of 55 containers, arranged in a two-story building that is about 50 yards long and includes eight product venues, conference rooms, an executive lounge and a central atrium. To reach destinations, exiderdome uses a convoy of 55 tractor trailers.

Browse these and more company and organizational news on the Process Control portal.

Honeywell to control Rautaruukki steel plant
Rautaruukki will use Experion PKS with PMD Controller to control its steel-making processes in Raahe, Finland.

Emerson installs Scenario Simulation at Fawley Power Station
In January 2008, Emerson installed Scenario simulation technology at this 40-year-old, oil-fired power plant in the UK to train operators.

Yokogawa to supply Exaquantum to Quinn Chemicals
The project is the 1,000th Exaquantum PIMS system.

ABB installs process control system at Jura Cement
ABB installed a System 800xA process control system at Jura Cement Fabriken in Wildegg, Switzerland.

Siemens to modernize automation at Bayer CropScience
Siemens will install a SIMATIC PCS 7 distributed control system at the Bayer CropScience site in Institute, West Virginia.

Safety Control Systems Conference
May 28-29, 2008 Calgary, Canada
This conference will focus on the technology and application of safety-related control and instrumentation systems in the chemicals, energy, mining and manufacturing industries.

Rockwell Automation RSTechED User Conference
June 1-6, 2008 Orlando, FL
RSTechED helps customers maximize their automation investments and use manufacturing data to fuel innovation.

ISA POWID Symposium
June 8-13, 2008 Scottsdale, AZ
The 18th Annual Joint ISA POWID/EPRI Controls and Instrumentation Conference and the 51st Annual POWID Division Symposium will be held at the Hilton Scottsdale Resort and Villas in Scottsdale, AZ.

Honeywell 2008 Americas Users Group Symposium
June 15-19, 2008 Phoenix, Arizona
The Americas event is one of five Honeywell Users Group symposiums taking place this year. Other events are scheduled for China, Europe, the Middle East and Australia

2008 Siemens Automation Summit
July 23 -25, 2008 Chicago, IL
The 2008 Siemens Automation Summit has presentations from industry experts and analysts, and customer case histories which detail the benefits of Siemens products.

Water and Wastewater and Automatic Controls Symposium
August 5-7, 2008 Orlando, FL
The event will help professionals in the water and wastewater industry understand how automatic control applications affect processing and distribution of water treatment.

Add an event to our calendar.

Rick Zabel
Vice President, Publisher
Automation.com

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