Articles and News

By Bill Lydon, Editor At the recent Honeywell User Group (HUG) 2013 conference, Honeywell announced new services under the Assurance 360 program for owners of Honeywell systems. The overall goal of these programs is a reduction of unplanned events, faster problem resolution, and better plant performance.

The Butantan Institute is a Brazilian biomedical research center affiliated to the São Paulo State Secretary of Health.

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

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Honeywell system integrator initiative was launched in 2009 and has quickly become a solid program to serve small to midrange customers with Honeywell’s modular systems. There are 200 system integrators in the program with 55 of them located in the United States.

By Bill Lydon, Editor On May 30, 2013, I attended the grand opening of Beckhoff Automation’s new $8 million North American headquarters. The facility features a training center, an ESD-protected PC repair center, and a building automation system based on Beckhoff‘s own hardware and software.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Over the last two years, Saudi Basic Industries Corporation (SABIC) UK Petrochemicals has empowered users to create custom dashboards based on Excel spreadsheet data and calculations using software from Sabisu. The software enables people to organize their data around "Communities" related to areas of interest.

Catalog covers weighing solutions for the chemical, pharmaceutical and food industries with hazardous environments.

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.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Representatives of pharmaceutical companies from around the world discussed the topic of real-time data integration and dashboarding. Each participant identified their company's progress and shared first-hand experiences. This is the fifth article from the PAR series.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Representatives of pharmaceutical companies from around the world discussed the value of integrated manufacturing systems. Each participant identified their company's progress and shared first-hand experiences. This is the fourth article from the PAR series.

Shipments for the U.S. industrial valve industry will grow to nearly $4.3 billion, according to figures released by the Valve Manufacturers Association (VMA). This exceeds the industry’s previous 10-year peak in 2008.

At Sanico's site in Turnhout, Belgium, PAS-X will replace the existing third party manufacturing execution system (MES) and the warehouse management system.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Part 3 - A survey conducted by pharmaceutical companies identified that more than half of the companies felt automation was meeting operational goals. The panel then outlined the areas for improvement in automation over the next 5-10 years.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens COMOS 10 is an enterprise platform for the process industry that integrates functions including automation design, plant engineering, operations, and enterprise interfaces.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Part 2 - A survey conducted by pharmaceutical companies identifies their return on investment (ROI) of automation projects. The most enlightening (and disturbing) facts came out in a panel discussion of the survey results - it appears Operations and Automation people are not communicating enough.

Machine Control Group, an engineering focused solution provider, will represent B&R Automation in Missouri, Arkansas, and western Tennessee.

By Bill Lydon, Editor A survey conducted by pharmaceutical companies of their operations management indicates management has higher expectations of benefits from automation than is being realized in their plants. Responses of that survey are highlighted in this Part 1 article from the 2012 Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable.

Automation.com, January 2013 By Bill Lydon, Editor The addition of an EtherNet/IP stack to the Siemens Sinamics drives offers another option and makes life easier for users and machine builders. The Sinamics S120 drive products now support Profibus DP, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP, and Ethernet TCP/IP.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Tofino Security Appliance and its management software withstood a variety of sophisticated reverse engineering attacks conducted by Digital Bond, the world's most respected sources for control system security research.

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) will host an exclusive press event for editors - CEO Round Table Discussion - at AUTOMATE in Chicago on 22 January 2013.