Articles and News

By Andy Chang, NI The Factory of the Future is a research and technology initiative aimed to push emerging technologies to improve the competitiveness of manufacturing processes by leveraging cyber-physical systems and big data analytics to enable a smarter, operator-centric production.

By Bill Lydon, Editor There is a great opportunity to leverage the latest technologies and compete in the global manufacturing landscape. The future lies in the convergence of product design, production planning, production engineering, production execution, and services.

The new press at North American Tillage was automated with a GuardLogix PAC, PowerFlex VFD, and EtherNet/IP network to fit into their automated process line.

January U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $341.17, down 32.9% from December’s $508.57 million.

By Brian Phillippi By making machines smarter through local processing and communication, the IIoT could solve problems in ways that were previously inconceivable. As innovation grows so does the complexity, which makes the IIoT a very large challenge that no company alone can meet.

Softing’s OPC UA Server Module for ControlLogix is now Certified for Compliance by the OPC Foundation

The SCADA system was installed for a water and wastewater infrastructure automation project at the city of Fair Oaks Ranch, TX.

By Jonathan Wilkins Putting aside the traditional and universal signs of something going wrong, such as programme bugs and wiring errors, here are the top five things that can go wrong with a PLC.

U.S. manufacturing technology orders totaled $506.89 million, up 32.7% from November and up 4.7% when compared with the total of $484.08 million reported for December 2013.

The PLC market dropped in 2012, but it’s coming back strong.

Rockwell Automation PowerFlex 700L drives and CompactLogix PACS convert DC power to AC power within the fuel cell and connect it to the grid.

IHS says the global I/O market grew a little in 2013, compared to the decline in 2012. The PLC market did not perform well in 2013, which affected PLC I/O.

PLC I/O replaced with DCS I/O while keeping existing PLC sequence logic.

ETT operates approximately 69,000 miles of pipelines. It installed a new control system based on the Rockwell Automation Integrated Architecture platform, CompactLogix controllers and medium voltage Allen-Bradley SMC Flex soft starters, running on a ControlNet network.

By Rockwell Automation King's Hawaiian had reached capacity at its California factory and bakery. Bachelor Controls created an architecture that got new equipment up and running in 10 months, while laying the groundwork for information gathering and sharing throughout the enterprise.

By Bill Lydon, Editor According to a recent survey, automation users want and deserve more from an automation controller. Albert Rooyakkers, CTO of Bedrock Automation, explains why they went back to the drawing board to design and develop this new, innovative automation controller.

FACTORY I/O is a real time automation sandbox where users can build and simulate industrial systems and use them with the most common automation technologies.

Egemin Automation will update controls or install completely new PLC-based control systems for pumping stations along Belgian rivers and canals.

PLC Technician II now contains ten 3DWorlds within the PLCLogix software, enabling users to simulate a “hands on” experience using the Logix 5000 PLC with interactive 3D animations.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Some industrial automation vendors and computer technology providers are offering cloud services that include historians, analytics, and complete MES (Manufacturing Execution System). These services offer a new way to improve operations by applying more computing power. Another important trend is leveraging new, more powerful controllers within the secure automation system environment. Should you be using one or the other, or both?