Articles and News

Nearly any industrial pipeline leak results in costs in the tens of millions of dollars, and costs are increasing over time. About a third of the documented costs involve property damage and cleanup

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com In the race for industrial profits, it’s not uncommon for organizations to run legacy equipment as long as they can, and avoid costly replacements and rewirings. While this can be a viable strategy in many areas, when it comes to industrial control network cyber security, it can be a deadly vulnerability for today’s organizations

An alternative methodology for designing multi-loop control structures based on steady-state indexes & multi-objective combinatorial optimization problems.

The PID term as described refers to the loop control technique used in controllers. A PID control loop includes proportional, integral, and derivative functions to control the process.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation A survey carried out by flavoured syrup supplier, Monin in October, 2017 found that 61 percent of Brits prefer coffee over tea. In a similar vein, this article compares the pros and cons of using traditional programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and newer programmable automation controllers (PACs).

The Industrial Internet of Things is an important advancement, and a real opportunity to increase ROI and asset value. But first, industrial control systems have to be made secure from hackers and cyb

After another busy year talking to a wide range of users, suppliers and industry consultants, and attending over 20 industry conferences and related events, I have another year’s worth of informed insights to share on the latest trends that will shape automation in 2018.

By Philip Allen, Grace Engineered Products Driving to work last week, deep in thought, pondering the many reasons companies use Permanent Electrical Safety Devices (PESDs) in their electrical safety programs I finally stumbled across a perfect analogy for electrical safety principles.

Process industry plants contain hazards that can have very severe consequences if a loss of containment occurs. Many of the safeguards that have been designed by engineers to protect process plants we

Line symbol from ISA-5.1-1984, revised 2009.

By Vikrant Angia, VCO Systems Too many in the picking product space fail to understand the complexities of the fast-changing omni-channel experience and associated total supply chain costs. Organizations must be optimized to provide the right product to end customers, across the various channels that share inventory.

Solutions for virtualization, cloud and mobility are becoming more stable, reachable and cost-competitive to a larger number of industrial SCADA end-users.

By Eric Kaufman, AspenTech Right now, commodity chemical producers need to shift their focus from growth to improving cost competitiveness. These 5 best practices show how cost competitiveness can be mastered to help commodity chemicals producers achieve sustainable competitive differentiation.

The viscosity measurement and control of fuel oil in power plants is very important for a proper combustion.

By Anthony Coggine, Business Writer Advances in automation are causing us to reevaluate everything, from how we power our businesses to how we analyze data. As such, the future of automation provides tremendous potential for both risk and reward.

By Stefan Schauer, Texas Instruments Stronger legal restrictions, a higher awareness of the growing consumption of natural resources and increasing energy prices are all driving the installation of more intelligent and cross-linked environmental control systems in buildings.

PID controller with a filter is designed for various types of integrating systems with time delay.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com With Seeq, users now have an application to perform analytics and optimize operations on their own, without having to engage data scientists and other IT experts

There are simple steps that must be taken now to make your automation systems more resilient to the inevitable cyberattack.

By Rick Delgado, Freelance Automation Commentator This guide seeks to educate a startups management on inexpensive methods of protecting their digitals assets and online business information.