Articles and News

Interview with Sam Harkreader, Maintenance/Reliability/Engineering Improvement Lead at the Chocolate Bayou Plant with Ascend Performance Materials

By Bill Lydon, Editor In February 2013, Schneider Electric announced the PlantStruxure PES (Process Expert System) as, “The innovative Process Automation System that brings together the best from the PLC/SCADA and DCS worlds and combines this with integrated energy management features…” To gain a better understanding, I had the opportunity to ask their Product Marketing Manager some questions about this new offering.

Classes typically are a combination of classroom and hands-on training on either the Endress+Hauser Process Training Unit (PTU), a full-scale, working process skid with on-line instrumentation and controls, or live instruments in training stands, both designed to simulate operating conditions.

By: Pat Garrehy, Rootstock While analysts project that the adoption rate for Cloud HR is over 60 percent and for Cloud CRM over 75 percent, the present adoption rate of Cloud ERP for manufacturers is less than ten percent. One major obstacle is that the larger ERP vendors are On Premise providers.

Institutions that receive a grant will have access to unlimited seats of any Siemens’ PLM software bundle, free center-based training, discount online learning, free upgrades and technical support.

Available for Apple iPhone and iPad, and Android mobile devices, the FuseFinder app features a comprehensive database of more than 130,000 fuse and fuse block cross reference part numbers.

ISA published the third collection of its Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM) methodology white papers designed to help manufacturers transform their paper-based processes into real-time operations intelligence.

By Bill Lydon, Editor A pharmaceutical company discussed their strategy and tips for system obsolescence planning and presented a specific case study of a DCS replacement at a specific site. Other pharmaceutical companies also shared their perspectives on the topic.

GAMBICA, the Trade Association for Instrumentation, Control, Automation and Laboratory Technology in the UK, formed an industrial network security group to counter the threats of viruses, industrial sabotage and terrorism.

Website describes S88 Builder, a configuration system developed based on the ISA-S88 standard for best practices of control operations at batch processing plants.

By Matthew Littlefield, LNS Research This article will investigate the traditional approach to audit management. Then, with the use of benchmark data from the 2012-2013 LNS Research Quality Management Survey, I'll discuss the benefits of automating the process.

Emerson will supply an Ovation control system, AMS Suite predictive maintenance software, valves and smart wireless instrumentation to the waste- and biomass-fed power station at Morcenx in southwestern France.

Sales revenue this year of hazardous area equipment in the Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) region will grow by less than half of what was estimated in 2012.

By Pat Garrehy, Rootstock What you should know before selecting your Cloud ERP solution. If an organization is considering a Private Cloud ERP vendor, it needs to undertake some comprehensive analysis to be assured that this vendor can satisfy all of their business requirements.

By Carl Benfield, Prescient Power With incentives delivering short payback terms, great quality products, and prices at a record low level, now is the time to build extra income streams and insurance against rising fuel costs into your business plan.

GuiXT Liquid UITM Client app, available through the App Store, requires no additional infrastructure for users to experience SAP GUI on Pads, iPhones and iPod touch devices.

Users of enterprise asset management (EAM) and computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) software report low levels of access to these systems through handheld mobile devices.

Fairbanks Scales is now running IFS Metrix Service Management, encompassing service functions ranging from work orders, service inventories, contract management and mobility.

By Pat Garrehy, Rootstock ERP software providers often confuse potential customers with cost comparisons relating to software license, implementation, ongoing maintenance, future enhancements and customizations between Cloud and On Premise solutions. The costs are actually about the same.

The 12th Annual Outage Management for Power Plants Conference will be held August 6-8, 2013 at The Westin Dallas Park Central in Dallas, TX.