Articles and News

By Robert Glass, ABB As food manufacturing plants become more connected through the Industrial Internt of Things (IIoT), the threat of cyber-attacks and how much damage they can do, has increased. This article offers advice on how to ensure your manufacturing process is kept secure.

By Aniket Maindarkar, Infosys The food and farming industries are embracing technological solutions that support sustainable farming and processing. When done well, these innovations can cut costs, promote efficiency, and increase consumer trust by providing transparency into the food supply chain.

The operating system that supported the Tyson Foods' Wisconsin plant's human machine interface (HMI) application was facing obsolescence. The new solution is based on the Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture system that incorporates both the Logix control platform and FactoryTalk production management software

The 2016 Process Instrumentation and Automation market in the United States, valued at $11.7 Billion, is projected to grow 3.6 percent by 2021 to a total of $14 Billion.

The acquisition will better serve the needs of Meyer Industries’ customer-base by providing a larger platform of research, engineering and manufacturing resources

By Markus Brettschneider, ABB Food and Beverage This article explains how food plant managers can add a similar level of connectivity to retrofit most motors with smart sensors to bring their plants to the digital age.

As part of the investment, OSIsoft and SoftBank will collaborate on developing new products and services enabling digital transformation and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), and strengthening OSIsoft’s presence in new markets.

The competition – created to recognize and reward the high levels of innovation in the packaging industry – was split into five categories: ease of use, modular machines, smart machines, sustainability, and traceability and product safety.

AES needed an expert integrator who knew the demands of recycling firsthand, with an engineering staff that could coordinate the equipment and automate the entire facility. Vecoplan, an industry provider of building and automating recycling technology, knew it could take on that project.

Each year, ISA’s technical division symposia events bring together innovators, thought leaders and other automation and control professionals from around the world to explore the latest technologies, trends and best practices.

This plant will be built in Doha, which is about 20 km east of Kuwait City, by Kuwait’s Ministry of Electricity and Water. The plant will produce 270,000 tons of fresh water per day, which is sufficient to meet the needs of 900,000 residents.

The combination, which is the first investment of its kind for Superior Controls, closed on March 31, 2017. Financial terms were not disclosed.

VEGA Americas and SignalFire Wireless Telemetry have teamed up to couple VEGAPULS69 radar level instruments with a SignalFire Remote Sensing System (SFRSS) to provide a wireless remote monitoring and control solution to track flour usage.

By Jorgen Saxeryd, ABB In 2014 in the UK, a large food manufacturer had to pay a £800,000 fine after a serious industrial accident. This article explains how safety procedures must be developed in food processing plants.

For supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) in its vegetable oil and grain plants, Adams uses Ignition by Inductive Automation. Ignition is an industrial applications platform with fully integrated tools for building SCADA, manufacturing execution system (MES), and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) solutions.

By Maria Ferrante, PMMI PMMI had a chance to speak about new technologies and trends in automation with Don Wickstrum, president and owner of Quest Industrial, a robotics integrator based in Monroe, Wisconsin. Wickstrum will present an Innovation Stage seminar at the inaugural ProFood Tech (April 4-6; McCormick Place, Chicago) on how robotics can fill the labor shortage in the food industry.

The integration, which is targeted for completion by the end of calendar year 2017, is intended to enhance Dematic's system integration capability in Europe. Egemin Automation had been acquired by the KION Group in 2015.

By Dave Sharpe, Rockwell Automation Whole and healthy ingredients can create obstacles in production, while ingredient transparency is also an issue. Luckily, an automation infrastructure that lets IT and OT communicate can solve many of these complications

The event will run from 08:30–17:00 on March 14, 2017. The day will be divided into five presentations, with topics from improving productivity and safety with robots to boosting profits by using plant electrical assessments.

The expansion allows Huffman Engineering to accommodate a growing client base in the western part of Nebraska, as well as Colorado and Wyoming.