Articles and News

College internships are extremely beneficial on the path to a career in industrial automation and manufacturing.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor In Part 2 of my interview with Eric Byres, leading industrial automation cyber security expert, he expands on the challenges and solutions for industrial cyber security, and includes recommendations for actions to take to protect your company and assets.

Ice Cream Castles in the Land of Automation

Viewpoint on ISA TR84.0.02 Simplified Methods and Fault Tree Analysis

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bejer Any manufacturer of complex machines that include HMIs must face a crucial decision: should you build your own human-machine interfaces or should you buy these ready-made?

Automation.com, September 2011 By William Gilbert, Siemens Today’s AC drive systems now have the technology to regenerate energy back to the AC line--a practical alternative to mechanical braking and non-regen drives in converting, packaging, wireforming and printing industries

Toy Story Midway Mania! is one of the most technologically sophisticated attractions yet developed by Walt Disney Imagineering. It marks the company's first use of industrial Ethernet for a ride's control system which takes advantage of Siemens products.

Linear Relationships for 4-20 mA transmitters

Virtualization simplifies computer maintenance and delivers high performance

Automation.com, September 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Bill Lydon talks with Jeff Kodosky, Cofounder of National Instruments and Father of LabVIEW, to discuss real-time control and particularly his continuing work on the problem of visually programming real-time- control applications.

Automation.com, September 2011 By Chris Bowman, TR Electronic Like any industrial communications, there are advantages and disadvantages to using EtherNet/IP. Informing oneself of the limitations will help you to determine if EtherNet/IP is the right way for your installation.

Evaluation Question

Livestream Schedule: Marketing & Sales Summit

Automation.com, August 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Cyber Security is a hot topic that has become more intense since the notoriety of the Stuxnet virus. I interviewed Eric Byres, one of world’s leading industrial automation cyber security experts, to gain a greater understanding of the challenges and solutions for industrial cyber security.

Automation.com, August 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Norm Gilsdorf of Honeywell Process Solutions sits down with our editor, Bill Lydon, to discuss their organizational changes, asset management, PLC competition, wireless, skill crisis, energy and sustainability.

Survey of the century's most important contributions to the practice of "control."

Automation.com, August 2011 By Bill Lydon, Editor Raj Batra and Adreas Aufenanger of Siemens Industry sit down with our editor, Bill Lydon, to discuss Siemens' global realignment, their process industry initiatives, and their vertical market applications focus.

Automation.com, August 2011 By Eric Byres This tale doesn’t have princes or frogs in it, but instead it deals with SCADA and industrial control system security. It is the myth of the "air gap" between control systems and the rest of the world. Believing in it leads to a false sense of complacency by both end users and vendors, making it a very dangerous fairy tale indeed.

Automation.com, August 2011 By Joe Ciringione Cable carrier systems not only transport energy, data and media to various types of machines, but also greatly influence energy costs. To keep energy costs low, one important consideration is the amount of pull-push, or driving force, that is required at a given speed to move the cable carrier.

Do you understand suppressed and elevated ranges? Here's an approach with a differential pressure transmitter measuring the level of a tank.