Articles and News

What are the failsafe positions for a valve?

By Doug Wylie, Rockwell Automation The stark reality in our contemporary digital, connected world is that there can be no absolute security. However, this by no means suggests the good guys can’t fight to win.

By Mike Hannah, Rockwell Automation Standards are critical to realize the promise of the IoT. Without standards, digital devices won’t consistently connect, leaving room for failure. Standards help ensure technologies and methodologies are proven and interoperable.

Use of key PID features, tuning objectives and feedforward control can meet the stringent requirements for biopharmaceutical production.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Fluke is making significant investments in a cloud-based maintenance management software alternative for industrial users. Their intention is to close the maintenance management loop between the maintenance technicians and operations/business management.

An ISA technical paper presents a novel technique for analyzing the behavior of an industrial system stochastically by utilizing vague, imprecise, and uncertain data.

By Bob Goossens, Acieta Robots protect workers from jobs hazardous to their health, increase capacity and enable new products that couldn’t be produced any other way. It’s hard to think of a manufacturing job that a robot can’t perform faster and with better repeatability.

Solenoids can be 2-way, 3-way, 4-way or 5-way?

New industrial automation industry standards are enablers for leveraging new technology for the process industries.

By Igor Glikin, Tolomatic Most electromechanical rodless actuators commonly use one of two main drive trains to convert rotary motion of the electrical motor to linear motion of the actuator’s load-carrying device: a power screw drive or a timing belt drive. Here’s how to select drive trains for reliability, efficiency and long service life.

By Jason Spera, Aegis By adopting a true paperless environment, and not just displaying PDFs, a factory can increase yields, quality and traceability while reducing costs and eliminating many of the risks associated with incorrect or badly controlled documentation.

By Jeff Nedwick, Infor Automotive One of the first steps needed to address the generational divide is to acknowledge the perceptions each generation has about the manufacturing industry and each other.

By Bill Lydon, Editor In an article titled 'Is it time for a new automation architecture?' I posed a question that stemmed from a number of discussions with users who believe our industry is stagnant. Many users voiced their opinions in an open discussion forum. They are frustrated with debates about which existing, outdated architectures are better. Many believe it’s time for a NEW architecture.

June 2015 offered a number of educational and technical training offerings from ISA.

By Jonathan Wilkins, European Automation

In liquid flow, what is the collapse or implosion of bubbles called?

PID controllers for front-end production rate, slurry concentration & average fermentation time can decrease costs and increase production rates for ethanol plants.

A Cognex DataMan 300 is able to read IDs on process-free printing plates at NELA, replacing other scanners that could not see the virtually invisible IDs.

An ISA technical paper presents an improved reinforcement learning method to minimize electricity costs on the premise of satisfying the power balance and generation limit of units in a microgrid with

By Bill Lydon, Editor At the 2015 ARC Forum in February Bedrock Automation demonstrated additional features to the company’s automation controller product. These features exemplify their technology leadership and reflect their commitment to delivering integrated, easy to use, scalable, and secure products. I reviewed the following new new features with Albert Rooyakkers, Bedrock Founder, CTO, and VP Engineering.