Articles and News

By Bill Lydon, Editor At the recent Honeywell User Group (HUG) 2013 conference, Honeywell announced new services under the Assurance 360 program for owners of Honeywell systems. The overall goal of these programs is a reduction of unplanned events, faster problem resolution, and better plant performance.

You must earn respect, and show respect to others. An engineering degree (or lack thereof) is a poor indicator of an individual’s knowledge level.

By Dr. Guido Beckmann, EtherCAT Technology Group EtherCAT is an open, real-time capable communication system which is widely used in manufacturing automation and, due to its properties, is also ideal for mobile applications such as heavy vehicles.

ISA Training and Education in August: Learn, Advance, Succeed

Research offers a new methodology for digitally redesigning an existing analog Smith predictor control system, such that the cascaded analog controller with input delay can be implemented with a digit

By Mark Davidson, LNS Research In most cases and in many large organizations, the manufacturing software and IT resources are capable, but just not being properly business directed to use technology to support this alignment. Here is a list of common MOM and Enterprise IT applications that companies can use to support monitoring, analysis of, enforcement, and visibility of progress toward these goals.

Many of the hottest technology trends today represent a convergence of largely internet and IT-based enabling technologies.

By Darran Kreit, Zettlex For position sensing applications, many engineers are still specifying incremental sensors because they believe absolute versions are too complex and/or costly. This describes the two approaches and compares the relative benefits of each.

Capture and report trends of key process variables and metrics immediately before and after process control improvements.

By Pat Garrehy, Rootstock Software Since the late nineties, SAP and Oracle have dominated On-Premise ERP in the large, Tier-1 manufacturing enterprises. Today, unlike a few years ago, there are Public Cloud ERP software applications that can support small and medium sized businesses

The cybersecurity threat – taking it personally

Using smarter technology to solve the municipal water conundrum

By Bill Lydon, Editor It is clear that OPC UA is transforming the architecture of industrial automation systems and providing a bridge to enterprise systems. With MatrikonOPC as part of the company, Honeywell is in a unique position as a user and supplier of OPC UA software and embedded OPC UA stacks.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Is it time for a new automation architecture instead of debating over existing ones? I started to wonder about this after reviewing more than 100 comments in our LinkedIn Discussion about my article titled, PLC vs. DCS - Competing Process Control Philosophy.

APC is any control strategy that utilizes multiple inputs and outputs to achieve higher-level control objectives and that involve functions not normally represented on P&IDs

From the clothes you wear, to the labels on a panel, to the layout and fonts on a graphic, to the look of your signature – appearance matters. There is a tremendous amount of wisdom in the expression,

Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) monitoring techniques can reveal hidden production capacity and new insights into causes of system downtime.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Schneider Electric held their Xperince event on June 4, 2013 in Washington D.C. which primarily focused on the challenges that cities face and how to solve them. Key topics included transforming energy into an asset, the smart grid, making smart cities a reality, and turning operating inefficiencies into capital investments.

Simple, Model-Based Process Control

Making yourself marketable in the automation industry takes initiative, but it is beneficial to you and the company.