Articles and News

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The Pharmaceutical Automation Roundtable group described the overall goal and vision of unified recipe management is to increase manufacturing productivity and accomplish zero day production releases. How far have they come?

GF reduced filling times, improved accuracy, and enabled tighter tolerances for its filling machines by using Emerson's Model FMT filling mass transmitter.

The interactive training is provided by a live instructor, and includes hands-on practice using ExperTune’s “Virtual Classroom.”

Automation.com, April 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor There is a great deal of discussion about DCS migrations and retrofits these days, raising questions that can be overwhelming for users. Suppliers offer upgrades from their legacy systems as well as upgrades from a competitor’s DCS. I interviewed industry veteran, Paul Galeski, to get his insights on this important topic.

KLEENLine builds stainless steel material handling equipment that handle foods, pharmaceuticals, and other clean-room dependent products.

F&S says electric drives earned revenues of €204.89 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach €313.14 million in 2017.

Turbine flowmeter revenues are forecast to increase at a rate of 0.6 percent per year through 2016 to reach $427.5 million worldwide.

Automation.com, March 2012 Friesen’s increases check weigher system speed by 31% and reduces downtime by 22% using open PC- and EtherCAT-based controls

Automation.com, February 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor The automation industry is learning to go beyond simply providing business systems with data by synergistically using information to collaborate in new ways to make plants more profitable, responsive and efficient.

Automation.com, March 2012 By Fred Kohlmann, Endress+Hauser White paper describes when and how to inspect, clean and calibrate pH sensors-including a complete decision tree diagram that outlines all necessary steps.

Automation.com, February 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor At Automation Fair 2011, Rockwell Automation released the new 5730 line of CompactLogix controllers. These controllers allow users and machine builders to get the power of the Logix architecture for smaller applications. Here's an overview of the new line.

ARC says Foundation fieldbus accounted for nearly three-quarters of the total digital process fieldbus marketplace in 2011.

Honeywell’s 2012 Americas student competition is challenging engineering students to use simulation software to create solutions to critical issues facing manufacturing companies.

Automation.com, February 2012 By Bill Lydon, Editor OPC UA is emerging as a fundamental technology for implementing Digital Factory concepts to increase production efficiency. The concept was reinforced at the ARC Forum in a session titled, Transforming Manufacturing with OPC UA: From Embedded to the Enterprise.

F&S says the market earned revenues of €496.5 million in 2010 and estimates this to reach €676.3 million in 2017.

Ventyx completed the integration of Mincom and ABB Network Control into one enterprise solutions organization.

Automation.com, February 2012 By Bill Lydon Rockwell Automation firmly believes there are users that only want simple controllers and users that want integrated control and information products. In order to meet these requirements Rockwell has two separate product and software architectures, Connected Components and Logix.

MP300 series switches are now in compliance with ATEX and are approved for zone 22 in potentially explosive dust atmospheres.

Automation.com, March 2012 By Keith Riley and Ravi Jethra, Endress+Hauser White paper addresses the application of Guided Wave Radar to measure level in steam loops, including discussions of how this technology functions and differs from more traditional forms of level indication.

The online Live Chat system allows customers to communicate directly with flow measurement experts.