Articles and News

By Marty Edwards – Managing Director, Automation Federation With the ever-increasing drumbeat of cyber-attack pounding louder and louder in the background, organizations utilizing automation systems of any kind need to take proactive, defensive steps immediately to avoid significant business disruption and lost revenue.

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.

The 2017 Hannover Fair taught us one thing above all others. Manufacturing winners and losers will be defined by their understanding and application of Industry 4.0 and IoT solutions.

The Rockwell Automation TechED event will feature over 750 hours of training, including hands-on labs, technical sessions and discussion forums. Attendees can learn about the techniques and technologies to maximize their manufacturing and production operations.

According to the Global IoT Decision Maker Survey published by International Data Corporation (IDC), nearly one-third (31 percent) of those surveyed have already launched IoT solutions, and another 43 percent are looking to deploy solutions in the next 12 months.

By Alan Grau and Dave West, Icon Labs Just as cyber-attacks take many forms and exploit a wide range of vulnerabilities in the target device, so too is cybersecurity multi-faceted. A fundamental, but often ignored, aspect of cybersecurity for IIoT devices is strong authentication.

Transitioning from Manual to Automated Conformal Coating, by Michael Szuch, Nordson ASYMTEK and Optimizing the Plasma Treatment Process Prior to Conformal Coating to Eliminate ESD Induced Failures, by David Foote, Nordson MARCH, will be presented on Wednesday, May 24, 2017.

The initiative is aligned around a common goal: the simplification and standardization of Industrial IoT edge computing, while still allowing the ecosystem to add significant value.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com We've received a number of comments and questions from vendors about The Open Group's effort to push for open process automation standards. Tn the aim of encouraging more discussion on the topic, we're sharing some of these questions in order to provide some more clarity on its importance.

Mentor provides a portfolio of solutions for the industrial market, with offerings that include the Nucleus real-time operating system (RTOS) and the Yocto Project-based Mentor Embedded Linux platform.

By Don Pham, IDEC New laser scanner technology allows plant personnel to address safety challenges with more comprehensive coverage zones and configurations. This article will explore some of these technology advancements and discuss how they help improve safety and optimize operations.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Connecting the manufacturing plant floor with the business enterprise through a single, open network has been an elusive goal in today's automation industry. Many industrial automation people believe that TSN will become a high volume, low cost technology with adoption by automotive and consumer industries

The combination is intended to result in a comprehensive offering for customers of industrial automation, by pairing B&R's products, software and solutions for modern machine and factory automation with ABB’s offering in robotics, process automation, digitalization and electrification.

The devices feature a multi-touch screen and are suitable for installation in the front of the control cabinet. The user can choose between different performance classes and display sizes ranging from 7.0 to 21.5 inches.

By Ola Lennartsson, Axis Communications For a long time, physical security was strictly analog, and it’s only connection to the IT network was at its end point. But now, now that IP-based security systems are becoming the norm, with all the associated benefits, both IT & OT professionals need to be aware that the game has changed.

The Award, sponsored by Printed Circuit Design and Fab magazine, was presented at a ceremony during IPC APEX 2017, held in San Diego, CA, on February 14, 2017.

This is the first acquisition case of Ubiqconn since its establishment 5 years ago. The management team remains after the acquisition, and resources from the parent company FICG will be provided to expand product lines and branding development for RuggON.

The training session is tailored for systems integrators, in-house integration specialists, machine builders and OEMs who wish to develop vision or inspection systems for deployment on Matrox smart cameras or any PC with GigE Vision or USB3 Vision cameras, including Matrox 4Sight GPm industrial computers.

The partnership between IBM and Opto 22 enables developers to design, prototype, and deploy applications to connect existing industrial assets to the IBM Watson IoT platform and share their data, capabilities, and resources with other connected systems and assets, to build the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT).

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The application of revolutionary new concepts and technologies, including the Internet of Things (IoT), sensor advances, embedded controllers, and improving technology, are rapidly changing automation architectures.