Articles and News

The ship will be the world’s largest Moss-type LNG carrier and will be used for transporting LNG from an onshore LNG processing plant that is being constructed as part of the Ichthys LNG project.

As main automation contractor for the massive upgrade, Emerson provided technologies and services that helped enable the Chicago-area refinery modernize its facility to process advantaged crude supplies.

By Bill Lydon, Editor At Automation Fair 2013, I spoke with Rockwell Automation’s Frank Kulaszewicz about the progress on their new architecture developments. The new controller architecture will consist of a backplane and each module will have its own IP address. Every motor drive, intelligent overload, intelligent sensor, intelligent light curtain, and other device will have an IP address.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The improvement of manufacturing productivity and quality requires sharing data and synchronizing controllers. This can now be accomplished by using new standards that were jointly developed by PLCopen and the OPC Foundation.

ISA will conduct four highly intensive technical training events—comprised of technician, automation engineering and safety courses—in Denver, Houston, and Carson, California during 2014.

By Bill Lydon, Editor At the 2013 Rockwell Automation Fair, Cisco described how their routers are becoming distributed embedded computer devices, intended to process and react to information from devices and sensors at the edge of the network. Could your next automation controller be embedded in an Ethernet switch?

By Bill Lydon, Editor With this acquisition, Schneider Electric significantly enhanced its position to serve the process industries and now has a complete portfolio of products to serve the entire industrial and process automation industry. This article highlights a few key aspects of the integration of the two companies.

The plant in Akron, Ohio, will transform waste plastics into energy products. Control will be by a PlantPAx Process Automation System.

Shandong Huachao Chemical will use the UOP C4 Oleflex process to produce isobutylene, while Zibo Qixiang Tengda Chemical will use the UOP Butamer process to transform normal butane to isobutane.

Emerson Network Power will provide uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems for Shell’s Prelude FLNG project, the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project.

Yokogawa will supply CENTUM VP integrated production control systems, ProSafe-RS safety instrumented systems, Exaquantum plant information management systems, analytical systems, analyzer shelters, and operator training systems.

Yokogawa will supply the control system for the SWRO-4 Desalination Plant, which is being built in Jubail, Saudi Arabia by the Power & Water Utility Company for Jubail and Yanbu (Marafiq).

Electric Power Plants is modernizing and increasing capacity at its Gusinoozyorskaya thermal power plant in Gusinoozyorsk, Republic of Buryatia, in Eastern Siberia.

ISA publishes a book that declares that another Chernobyl- or Fukushima-like catastrophe is inevitable unless nuclear power plants across the world adopt fully automated safety systems.

Honeywell will provide the Integrated Control and Safety System (ICSS) for the 615,000 barrel-a-day Al Zour refinery complex to be built in southern Kuwait. Honeywell will also provide the front-end engineering design (FEED) for the system.

By Robert Golightly, AspenTech Adaptive Process Control provides a set of innovative, patented techniques for automatic adjustment of the controllers in real-time and elevates maintenance to a built-in and continuous part of the management process.

By Softing The San Jacinto Tizate geothermal project in Nicaragua is using Foundation Fieldbus connected to pressure and temperature transmitters and control valves to move the actual control function from the control room to the field devices.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Foxboro has dramatically stepped up the power of their controller with the Foxboro Evo process automation system introduction. This controller is a great example of the new breed of controllers that leverages the latest technology.

Yokogawa will supply control systems, safety systems, remote instrument enclosures, and the analyzer shelters and analytical systems for the USGC Petrochemicals Project.

Honeywell will provide Fusion4 technology to allow biofuels used in London buses to be blended directly at London bus depots, rather than mixing with standard diesel at refineries in Scotland.