Articles and News

Catalog details solutions for linear and rotary motion control applications, including integrated actuator and motor designs, explosion proof designs, force tube actuators, and servo motor and gearmotors.

Matrox remote graphics extension technology solves system interference and USB connectivity issues related to legacy KVM solutions.

Project will upgrade HVAC, building systems, and lighting controls to reduce energy costs by more than $2.3 million annually.

Covers pick-and-place/palletizing, label printing/scanning, stretch wrapping, carton packing, PET bottle manufacturing and filling machines.

Highly abrasive nickel ore slurry flow at a Canadian Xstrata nickel ore processing mill caused serious erosion of metallic diaphragms in pressure transmitters. So ABB coated the transmitters.

ProfiBus was created in 1989 by the German government in cooperation with several manufacturers of automation equipment. It is a messaging format specifically designed for high-speed serial I/O in factory and building automation applications.

This article gives a short overview of general-purpose robotics software platforms currently available for service robotics applications. The article is a compilation of the knowledge the authors accumulated during an experimentation work they’ve been recently involved in.

To ensure openness, verify that you will not be locked in on any level of the system. Encourage multi-subsystem integration for maximum efficiency. Start from a good open specification framework and learn the technologies, options, and market directions. After all, freedom of open information exchange is empowering.

Free service helps identify applications where helium tests can be successfully handled with mass flow leak test methods without sacrificing accuracy.

Industrial plants rely heavily on their automation, instrumentation and control data communications to relay signals between machinery, devices and control systems to activate events on an exacting and pre-determined schedule, with little or no margin for error. Plant managers and control network administrators also require optimal security, manageability and reliability so that network availability attains 99.999 percent uptime or better. Yet analysts report that a large percentage of unplanned downtime in industrial operations is caused by network infrastructure problems.

Ultra-precise merge gapping, parallel diverting sortation with linear induction motors, modular variable-speed functionality and single-point system control – JCPenney’s new Lathrop, California DC with its Integrated Sortation Sub-System (ISS) technology including a 980-foot long single-unit continuous sorter from Dematic, is processing up to 165,000 cases per day at 99.9 percent accuracy.

The significant benefits of error proofing both automated and manual assembly procedures are becoming increasingly evident in all industries. The objectives are both increased quality and increased productivity.

There is a growing challenge on the plant floor if you haven’t experienced it yet, I am sure you will soon. A study by ARC predicts that the number of factory floor devices with an IP address is going to TRIPLE in the next four years and those devices are pushing lower and lower into the controls architecture… from systems, to sub-systems down to sensors… so Ethernet equipment with an IP addresses are increasing rapidly.

Providing operators with enough information to prevent abnormal situations and to diminish the impact of unpreventable abnormal situations is the key to an effective alarm management process. The phased alarm management approach offers a proven, measurable and easily implemented methodology that will guide a plant to a higher level of safety, environmental and production standards.

InterTech Development Company is arguably the world leader in the functional and leak testing technology that underpins the automotive industry’s ability to meet Clean Air Regulations requirements and achieve higher fuel efficiency standards. InterTech’s new Detroit office is expected to help many OEMs and their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers cut time-to-market by up to 15%.

This paper reviews practical approaches to having a dependable monitoring capability as well as provide signal sources for a periodic monitoring program.

In the new and different manufacturing environment of the 21st century, the companies that can adapt, innovate and utilize global resources will generate significant growth and success.