Articles and News

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The Rockwell Software Studio 5000 unified engineering and design environment is a framework for engineering collaboration - the start of a new system architecture built on a SOA, "a bottom up build," that will evolve over the next few years.

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) refers to the growing trend of letting employees use their own devices as operator Interfaces for business and automation systems in the workplace.

Food Safety and the Role of an Enterprise Batch Record

A simple numerical procedure for estimating nonlinear uncertainty propagation

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The foundation of the Enterprise Control System (ECS) is an integration framework that ties applications together in an open Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) that allows systems to be deployed with standard components and minimizes customization.

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The BIG-EU collaboration has the goal to optimize the data flow between systems utilizing BACnet communications (building automation) and industrial/process control systems.

To increase plant turndown, use control valves and flow measurements with the best low flow response and precision.

By Steve Coulton, Kooltronic The primary purpose of electrical enclosures is to provide protection and safety for the components they house. Without proper cooling, components can be subject to damaging heat, shortening their longevity and reliability.

HMI information needs to be displayed in meaningful and actionable ways rather than as "raw data."

Wireless technology for industrial automation applications has requirements regarding standards, protocols, methodologies, and support tools

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Maintenance strategy is becoming an important topic because of aging systems and the lack of experienced personnel. The goal of a maintenance strategy is to achieve the highest automation system availability consistent with the organization's safety, capital investment and profit goals.

Be extremely careful to select knowledgeable technicians to install capillary seals. Many a pipefitter has pulled them out of the box and bolted them up without the proper gaskets and spacers. If this

By Mark Howard, Zettlex Inductive sensor terminology and techniques can be confusing. This article explains the various types and operating principles, as well as their consequent strengths and weaknesses.

Automation.com, December 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Emerson is expanding their role of providing lifecycle services and achieving the "trusted advisor" status with customers. With the addition of new employees and products, they are positioning themselves to better serve process automation users.

Automation.com, November 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The automation industry has been centered on a five layer hierarchical architecture for years but new technology is making it possible to streamline this model to eliminate layers, increase performance, and lower software maintenance costs.

Employ setpoint filters, velocity limits and external-reset feedback to meet the process control objectives at your plant or facility.

Use disturbance rejection tuning, external-reset feedback, and a setpoint filter in your PID controller to achieve loop performance objectives.

Recently I watched the movie Apollo 13 again, this time including my four children who had never seen the cinematic classic. I’ve personally seen it too many times to count; it’s one of my favorites

Automation.com, November 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor At a recent annual update, Schneider Electric's Jeff Drees said their big software bet is centered on StruxureWare Software - a platform and suite of applications between automation and enterprise computing.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Magmeters