Articles and News

The specification “PLCopen Safe Motion” version 1.0 – official release – is now available on the PLCopen website for downloading. This new solution is based on an existing functionality as already specified in PLCopen Safety: SF_SafetyRequest.

Connected manufacturing gives everyone in the organization a voice, from the shop-floor employees to the CEO.

By Marianne Williams, Emerson This article explains how the latest generation of vibrating fork level switches feature increased health monitoring functionality, which enables maintenance to be planned and process availability to be increased

By introducing change management and version control software from M.A.C. Solutions for more than 400 of its programmable devices (PLCs and HMIs) at its facility in Oxfordshire, Diamond Light Source intends to minimize the risk of machine downtime caused by PLC back-up or software code errors

By Michael LaGrega, Siemens Data gathered by RFID readers can be a critical element in a corporation’s plans to gain increased visibility and understanding of parts, materials and other moveable assets. All of this valuable information can be integrated more easily when standards like OPC-UA with its AutoID companion are employed.

This specification describes the mapping of the Sercos device model and the Sercos device profiles to OPC UA, so that functions and parameters of Sercos devices are made accessible via OPC UA in a vendor-independent manner.

By Andrew McIntyre, Texas Instruments At the core of Industry 4.0 is the need for reliable communication networks. These networks are closely tied to real-time operational needs; therefore, they must be able to handle information in a deterministic and redundant manner.

By Tom Bass, Emerson Automation Solutions Pumps in remote locations can be monitored with wireless transmitters in a cost-effective manner to improve uptime, avoid incidents and increase reliability.

Perhaps no other new technology comes with more promise to manufacturing executives than big data analytics for manufacturing and the process industries.

For on-site & off-site analysis, industrial IoT delivers data to the right personnel without requiring connection to the plant’s real-time control system.

The goal of the conference, which took place on 28th June 2017 at the National Conference Centre in Birmingham,was to expand the horizons for OPC users and systems integrators by improving their knowledge and understanding of OPC technologies, as well as giving attendees an opportunity to view real-world demonstrations of cutting-edge applications for OPC and industrial data

By Dr David Pugh, IDTechEx The new report from IDTechEx Research, Low Power Wireless Networks 2017-2027, gives an independent and comprehensive analysis of the wireless networking ecosystem covering a range of technologies, using both licensed and unlicensed spectrum to communicate.

By Brian Joe, Emerson Automation Solutions Until recently—when engineers wanted to monitor plant equipment such as steam traps, pumps or heat exchangers—they were often faced with difficult, complex and expensive projects. New apps and wireless instruments make equipment monitoring much less expensive than with traditional methods

When Tarmac asked Elite Control Systems to assist Siemens in providing them with a way to monitor the Stacker and Reclaimer’s activities through the plant’s existing control system, Elite devised a custom solution.

By Bob McIlvride, Skkynet Cloud Systems More and more companies are recognizing the value hidden in their process data, and are looking at ways to tap into it. If you need to provide access to OPC data on your plant system, say for analytics, predictive maintenance, or real-time dashboards, you'll need to secure your system from the kind of threat that WannaCry poses

By John Rinaldi, Real Time Automation In their latest series of announcements, it’s clear that OPC UA is key to Microsoft’s strategy of entering and dominating the factory floor through its Azure cloud services.

Panacea Update Manager automates the process of deploying Microsoft patches on industrial networks by allowing only automation vendor approved patches to be deployed on the appropriate computers.

By Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation In November 2016, the Industrie 4.0 Platform published a checklist for classifying and advertising products as Industrie 4.0 “Basic,” “Ready,” or “Full”. To comply with the “Industrie 4.0 communication” criterion, even the lowest category requires the product to be addressable over the network via TCP/UDP or IP and to integrate at least the OPC UA information model.

Wireless Sensor Network for Building & Home Automation Market Viewed as Key For Successful Implementation of Smart Cities

Over two days, Festo's course will assist leaders to identify opportunities for change within their own workplaces and help them recognise how and where to apply the principles of Industry 4.0.