Articles and News

A joint working group between OPC Foundation and FieldComm Group, tasked with developing a protocol independent companion specification for process automation devices, was formed in late 2017.

A complex process is not a complicated process with a large number of measurements and actuators. It is complex because its variables are highly coupled and correlated. As much as possible, control sh

By Ramona Schindler, Siemens Industry, Inc. With the machine tool industry in flux currently, as it seeks to find its way into the digital world, the entire process chain necessitates the integration of suppliers who can respond to the needs of the industry.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The interoperability of process control systems has been a largely philosophical debate, up until this point, but tangible examples of interoperabilty may soon be on their way

DCS upgrades must consider the safety, reliability, and operation of a plant. Be careful when selecting a system, so you do not fall in the frequent-migration trap.

A "circle" enclosed in a "square," which indicates it is an instrument with a shared display or a shared control.

The office is located in Arlington, WA, part of the Seattle Metropolitan area. PDS provides full service precision spindle sales and service for CNC routers, milling machines and robotic units.

Siemens AG and Perceptive Engineering Ltd announced a partnership which offers Perceptive’s PharmaMV and Siemens Simatic Sipat software products closely integrated to provide a solution for advanced control and optimization applications in both continuous and batch pharmaceutical manufacturing.

The PID term as described refers to the loop control technique used in controllers. A PID control loop includes proportional, integral, and derivative functions to control the process.

By Jonathan Wilkins, EU Automation A survey carried out by flavoured syrup supplier, Monin in October, 2017 found that 61 percent of Brits prefer coffee over tea. In a similar vein, this article compares the pros and cons of using traditional programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and newer programmable automation controllers (PACs).

This robotic technology is designed help build supply chains. The design can accomplish volumes ranging from millions of units a day, to a small operation in the backroom of a supercenter or mall anchor store.

Once the students build a robot, their teams will participate in one or more of the global 158 regional and district events that measure the effectiveness of each robot, the power of collaboration, and the determination of students. The competition culminates at the 2018 FIRST Championship, 18-21 April in Houston, Texas and 25-28 April in Detroit, Michigan.

The 20-page document, Securing Industrial Control Systems - Best Practices, covers the threat landscape and presents a holistic approach to defending it, including assessing risk, physical security, network security, workstation and server security, as well as the fundamentals of OSA.

Control Station’s 2018 training services calendar currently lists a total of sixteen workshops scheduled in industrial centers across the United States and Canada. In particular the scheduled workshops target process manufacturers located throughout the Great Lakes, Gulf and Pacific Northwest regions.

PID controller with a filter is designed for various types of integrating systems with time delay.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com With Seeq, users now have an application to perform analytics and optimize operations on their own, without having to engage data scientists and other IT experts

Engineers typically do not have access to 3-D printers to do this prototyping. Instead, most of them contract with a third party to get quick turnaround on parts. With Haydon Kerk 3DP prototyping services, machine builders can now get help with this type of design verification.

Konecranes MTS division brings nearly 40-years of experience providing a full range of preventive maintenance, rebuild, remanufacture, retrofit and repair services, as well as onsite support for all types and brands of machine tools.

The Invenergy Future Fund led the round with participation from THI Investments and all existing investors, GGV Capital, Lux Capital and Planven Investments SA. This latest round brings Nozomi Networks’ total funding to date to $23.8 million.

Manufacturers of automation devices can now offer their customers the functionality to manually distribute the various tasks of the PLC application to symmetrical processor cores of the control CPU in CODESYS.