Articles and News

Endress+Hauser Group increased its net sales by approximately 7 percent to over 1.8 billion euros ($2.43 billion) in the 2013 financial year.

By Bill Lydon, Editor With this acquisition, Schneider Electric significantly enhanced its position to serve the process industries and now has a complete portfolio of products to serve the entire industrial and process automation industry. This article highlights a few key aspects of the integration of the two companies.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Helmuth Ludwig, CEO of Siemens Industry Sector USA, provided his views on the 2014 manufacturing outlook and other industry topics, including the first live display of an assembly line at the Auto Show in Detroit, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first assembly line.

Shandong Huachao Chemical will use the UOP C4 Oleflex process to produce isobutylene, while Zibo Qixiang Tengda Chemical will use the UOP Butamer process to transform normal butane to isobutane.

The control and on/off valves, emergency shut-down valves, and ball and butterfly valves will be delivered to Sadara's fully integrated chemicals complex currently under construction in Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The huge installed base of automation software running on Windows XP will be vulnerable to cyber-attacks with the end of Windows XP support April 8, 2014. More than 12 years old, Windows XP is the longest supported version of Windows ever and therefore is the most used in industrial automation systems.

EMS-CHEMIE moved to the Everything3D (AVEVA E3D) software for design of its chemical facilities right in the middle of an ongoing project.

By Bill Lydon, Editor I recently had the opportunity to discuss Ocean Data Systems – a little company you likely have never heard of - with Roy Kok, their VP of Sales and Marketing. Their product, Dream Report, is OEMed by a number of well-known software providers. Here is a synopsis of my interview with Kok.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Major General Robert E. Wheeler gave a compelling and informative keynote presentation on cyber security at the ISA Automation Week conference in Nashville, TN on November 6, 2013. The cyber security challenges faced by the military and industrial automation systems are strikingly similar.

ACM Facility Safety provides SafeGuard Sentinel SIL safety software that systems integrator Autopro Automation Consultants will help implement in process industries.

By Robert Golightly, AspenTech Adaptive Process Control provides a set of innovative, patented techniques for automatic adjustment of the controllers in real-time and elevates maintenance to a built-in and continuous part of the management process.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Emerson’s Sonnenberg and Zornio discussed pervasive sensing as a growing trend. They framed the discussion around the idea of pervasive sensing as the way to achieve the pursuit of actionable information to improve operations and maintenance.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Foxboro has dramatically stepped up the power of their controller with the Foxboro Evo process automation system introduction. This controller is a great example of the new breed of controllers that leverages the latest technology.

Yokogawa will supply control systems, safety systems, remote instrument enclosures, and the analyzer shelters and analytical systems for the USGC Petrochemicals Project.

Honeywell’s Profit Suite R400 process optimization software will be deployed at two of Maoming Company’s ethylene-cracking facilities.

By Paul Hodge & Joe Bastone, Honeywell The advantages of optimized project workflow can be realized at both ends of the project schedule. The benefits are essential to ensuring control systems pose the least risk to project schedule and allow for safe, efficient and reliable plant startup and operation.

Yokogawa will supply a CENTUM VP control system to control plant facilities such as reaction tanks and distillation units, and field instrumentation and equipment including FOUNDATION fieldbus flowmeters, pressure transmitters and control valves.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The ability to improve manufacturing operations is growing with the application of software that can leverage lower cost computing. More than 30 years ago, ULTRAMAX Corporation commercialized an interesting software product to optimize the operating performance of industrial processes. I recently caught up with the Founder and CEO to learn more about the product and their philosophy and perspective of industrial process optimization.

LLC GSE-Giprokauchuk is a Russian company that does design and research for the chemical, petrochemical and synthetic rubber industries.

The valves will be used in an MDI integration project (diphenymethane disocyanate) and a new PO/AE integration project under construction in China (epoxy propane and acrylic ester).