Articles and News

A committee of industry leaders and academia met at ISA headquarters to begin work on the learning objectives for an automation engineering curriculum for universities. "Our goal is to develop curriculum content for a 4-year automation engineering degree program," said committee chair Randy Buchanan of the University of Southern Mississippi.

FKI Logistex will supply Chronopost International with a complete tilt-tray sortation system for the company's new 11,000 square-meter (118,000 square-foot) parcel hub in Chilly-Mazarin, near Paris, France. Chronopost, is building the new hub to support an ambitious three-year plan to redesign its entire transportation network.

Tyco Fire and Integrated Solutions UK will become the exclusive Oil & Gas / Petrochemical representative for RTP 2500 SIS in the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, India and Kazakhstan.

The Department of Sanitation of New York is incurring significant labor and costs savings with a new system of Intermec handheld computers and printers that helps agents issue tickets for recycling, health and administrative code violations.

Services available include engaging and deploying skilled technicians and engineers to consult on enterprise, government and other client projects, providing expert training and consulting on the effective use and deployment of PowerCAD technologies, and performing onsite project mentoring and building surveying.

The resulting company, known as OA International bv, is a 200+ employee global automation solutions provider. Martin F. Wieffering, former CEO of KSE Protech is now OA International's Chief Executive Officer & Chairman.

Aleier and MACTEC Engineering will offer integrated enterprise asset management (EAM) and engineered management systems (EMS) solutions to the facilities management market.

UK's Defence Aviation Repair Agency (DARA) upgraded its facility for the storage of parts and tools involved in the servicing of RAF and naval aircraft with 11 Lean-Lift automated vertical lift storage systems.

The Web site, "Manufacturing is Cool," was created by the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Education Foundation with the goal of inspiring pre-teens and teens to pursue careers in engineering and manufacturing. It provides an inside look at how kid favorites - such as snacks, fashion, cars and cell phones - are designed and produced by engineers.

Kuka Robotics has been selected by Transbotics Corporation to provide robotics to work with a new line of Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGV). The robots and AGVs streamline material handling processes for manufacturers by offering a complete solution for material handling from receiving to production to shipping.

Kepware's KEPServerEX suite will be used to supply device connectivity for TriA Solution's A3 Core, used in power monitoring and testing management solutions in Power and Distributed Generation.

Schneider Electric announced the completion of the acquisition of American Power Conversion Corporation following satisfaction of the closing conditions of the merger agreement. Under the terms of the acquisition, each share of APC common stock is converted to the right to receive US$31.00 in cash. The total amount to be paid in cash to APC shareholders represents approximately US$6.1 billion.

ISONAS joined the HID Connect Partner Program.

The expanded facility, located at MGE's North American headquarters in Costa Mesa, Calif., encompasses over 25,000 sq ft including 28 test bays with a total electrical capacity of 12 MW. The expanded test site gives customers the ability to witness critical testing of their enterprise and data center power systems to assure operational functionality and interoperability of their entire power infrastructure.

Advantech offers a number of solution guides, product selection guides, catalogs and case studies - many are available in PDF format. The eAutomation Solutions Catalog introduces a full range of products, focusing on the following vertical sectors: Machine Automation, Power & Energy, Building Automation, Environment Monitoring Systems, Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Facility Management Systems.

In response to the growing need to freely communicate with a wide range of devices, protocols that originated in the BA industry have evolved to deliver straightforward access to a broad range of BA devices. Today, many vendor-specific proprietary protocols have given way to a standardized protocol such as BACnet.