Articles and News

Automation.com, May 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Energy conservation and sustainability were common topics at AHR 2012 with exhibitors showing a variety of products including primary equipment, sensors, controls, services, and building automation systems. Here are a few interesting products presented at the show.

Automation.com, May 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor As Ethernet has gained popularity in the industry and systems have evolved, the nature of Echelon's business has changed. The company has been building a business position centered on energy metering and smart grid.

Temperature is a critical condition for chemical reactions to take place. In batch process, control becomes more complicated because of the variability of level, pressure and concentrations.

Centennial College Technology Fair & Career Night in Toronto

Automation.com, May 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Participants of the Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable discussed maintaining documentation for the life cycle of installed automation and control systems in pharmaceutical plants.

The primary objective of a dynamic model of a continuous process for process control is for the open loop gain, open loop time constant, and total loop deadtime be correct for the effect of each proce

Automation.com, May 2012 By Jürgen Lange, Softing Here's a history of OPC, which also gives an understanding of the importance that the new OPC Unified Architecture standard has for automation. Part 2 in a series of eight articles

Automation.com, May 2012 By Georg Süss, Softing OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA) is a standard is aimed at eliminating the weak points detected in Classic OPC while significantly expanding the use case scenarios. Part 1 in a series of eight articles.

Alarm system optimization for increasing operations productivity

Automation.com, May 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Hannover Messe was again an impressive event that brings together people from the many isolated "silos" in manufacturing to one event for learning and sharing. China was the partner country this year providing yet another dimension to the event.

Automation.com, May 2012 By J Timothy Shea, Senior Analyst Due to expected increasing demand for level measurement and inventory tank gauging technologies as tools to help companies to continue to improve operational efficiencies, increase productivity, gain greater control over inventories and enhanced accuracy, VDC is forecasting a 5.2% CAGR through 2016.

Automation.com, May 2012 By Jeanne Schweder, Freelance Editor Predicting the reindustrialization of the U.S. over the next five years, Global CEO Joe Hogan said that the company is in the "sweet spot" to take advantage of the many megatrends driving the American economy.

The best way to classify process simulators is to look at the original intent of the simulator software when first released, who are the software developers, who configures the models, and how are the

Automation.com, May 2012 By Dr Harry Zervos, IDTechEx EnOcean Equipment Profiles (EEPs) lays the foundation for fully interoperable, open wireless technology comparable to standards such as Bluetooth and WiFi.

Automation.com, May 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor Participants of the Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable discussed the topic of networking approaches while considering the differences between manufacturing automation control system networks and business IT networks.

An I/O checkout on a DCS system is rather difficult because there is no means to “force” the I/O as you can most PLCs

Automation.com, May 2012 By Mark Howard, Zettlex Article lists 10 simple rules for design engineers when selecting position and speed sensors that must cope with shock or vibration.

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable group described the overall goal and vision of unified recipe management is to increase manufacturing productivity and accomplish zero day production releases. How far have they come?

Is a VFD or Valve Faster?

Automation.com, April 2012 By John Krasnokutsky, Siemens Industry Machine builders and automation engineers should note that an energy-efficient system can actually translate into higher productivity.