Articles and News

By Peter Seeberg and Jürgen Lange, Softing Industrial Automation The eighth and last part of this series provides a summary and gives an outlook on the future of OPC technology.

The decline in experienced controls engineers and technicians is occurring while engineering schools are not replacing these people fast enough.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Manufacturing automation has been doing the heavy lifting to improve productivity in the United States while the country’s educational systems continue to have disturbingly low productivity. After talking with management of many manufacturing companies, reviewing surveys and statistics, it is obvious to me that this situation is dramatically out of control.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Spring is a time of new beginnings and new life. So why can’t we breathe new life into our automation systems? It’s a good time for automation engineers to consider new innovative automation applications to improve production.

By Reid Paquin, Aberdeen Group In December 2012, Aberdeen conducted research into the state of the engineering and technical workforce and found out that a majority of the 562 companies polled (over 60%) feel that they are understaffed in their engineering positions. Aberdeen looked into the challenges behind hiring and retaining engineering talent and uncovered what the industry leaders do to combat this problem.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens hosted a thought leadership event on February 22, 2013 in Houston, TX. More than 300 oil and gas industry executives, technology leaders, and industry experts attended featured presentations, a trade fair and a networking event at the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

When searching for a job, seek out plants that have at least one seasoned engineer under whom you can work.

Initiative by ISA Kolkatta Section in India Spurs Membership and Professional Growth

By Lantech To solve interoperability issues, ITU (International Telecommunication Unit) drafted a protocol, G.8032 Ethernet Ring Protection Switching (ERPS), to be compatible with the Ethernet standard and make the recovery scheme less than 50ms.

By Mark Howard, Zettlex Angle sensors are generally rated and, just as importantly, priced according to their measurement performance. But performance is stated in a variety of ways and some manufacturers confuse matters by using crafty ‘spec-manship.’

By Bill Lydon, Editor Part 3 - A survey conducted by pharmaceutical companies identified that more than half of the companies felt automation was meeting operational goals. The panel then outlined the areas for improvement in automation over the next 5-10 years.

By Reid Paquin, Aberdeen Group In December 2012, Aberdeen delved into the psyche behind the implementation of a safety program or safety technology at 169 manufacturing organizations. Here's a summary of what they learned.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens COMOS 10 is an enterprise platform for the process industry that integrates functions including automation design, plant engineering, operations, and enterprise interfaces.

Add flow measurements to every important stream and compute online metrics for the process efficiency and capacity of each key unit operation.

By Bill Lydon, Editor At PackExpo there were two innovations that really stood out as representing “thinking outside the box” creative solutions - one was Adaptive Robotic Tooling by FESTO and the other was the XTS Linear Carrier System by Beckhoff Automation.

By Matthew Littlefield With today’s competitive global economy, it’s no surprise that manufacturing and industrial companies are constantly trying to cut costs and improve productivity. Operational excellence programs can help with this.

By Bill Lydon, Editor IO-Link is gaining momentum as the first open standard for smart sensor I/O. IO-Link is a point to point network communications standard and protocol that is an IEC standard (IEC 61131-9) for sensors and actuators.

Modified Smith predictor design for periodic disturbance rejection

By Nuris Ismail and Reid Paquin of Aberdeen Group Manufacturing companies invest millions, if not billions, of dollars in plant equipment. The pressure to get the most out of their current asset base while maximizing productivity is top of mind for most executives. While these pressures are extremely important, organizations cannot forget the impact that operational risks can have to their business.

Estimate each process industry job before starting it and always follow up and compare the final cost figures against the initial estimate.