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Innovation Alley at ISA Expo 2006 (17-19 October at the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas) will provide an opportunity for attendees to see the future, along with the commercial innovations of today's automation hardware, software, and service suppliers that are presented in the traditional exhibits.

The exhibit, demonstrating interoperability of SERCOS II and SERCOS III motion controllers and servodrive products from multiple vendors, will be in the OMAC Packaging Workgroup booth, number C-64, located in the concourse entrance to upper level McCormick Place North.

News sales offices include Ulrich Lüer of UL.Consult GmbH in Germany and Alexander Hermes in Austria.

Kiosk Panel computers include the PANEL1155-807 and PANEL5155-807, both equipped with high brightness 15-inch XGA TFT LCD displays. Both support SAW (Surface Acoustic Wave) touch screens and high performance processors including Intel Pentium M and Intel Celeron M CPUs.

Carlo Gavazzi is using RTP's PermaStat PLUS compounds to meet ATEX requirements in its Tripleshield Capacitive Sensors. This compound is permanently static dissipative and provides the necessary surface resistance to meet the ATEX requirement of less than 1 Gohm.

The University of Kansas will be presenting "Intelligent Asset Management using RFID: Real ROI in Asset Management and Closed Loop Systems" on Wednesday-Friday, February 28 to March 2, 2007, at the Hampton Inn and Suites, Country Club Plaza, Kansas City, Missouri.

Barry-Wehmiller will purchase the assets of Sandiacre Rose Forgrove, a division of Molins PLC. Sandiacre will be integrated with Hayssen Packaging Technologies to form one of the largest flexible packaging equipment providers, with more than $80 million in revenues. Hayssen is a division of Barry-Wehmiller.

These new editions are the second publication of updates in 2006. More than 20 Specification Enhancements were integrated into these editions, allowing more comprehensive and useful information to be contained within EDS files, adding DTM configuration options, and facilitating the deployment of these networks with increased flexibility.

The "Field Device Tool for CIP Networks: Annex to FDT Specification" provides the schemas required to implement the Device Type Manager (DTM) configuration option for the currently available adaptations of networks built on the Common Industrial Protocol (CIP), which include DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP and ControlNet.

SERCOS International and ODVA announced that SI will adopt CIP Safety as its functional safety protocol for SERCOS. ODVA will extend The CIP Safety Specification to include safety profiles for SERCOS devices. SI will develop the SERCOS III network adaptation to utilize CIP Safety. SI and ODVA, jointly, will develop and establish conformance testing for devices implementing CIP Safety on SERCOS.

The Industrial Automation display area at HANNOVER MESSE 2007 (the Hannover Fair, 16 to 20 April) combines three international trade fairs in one: INTERKAMA+, Factory Automation, and Industrial Building Automation. The range of products and services encompasses all key disciplines in the field of automation - from open- and closed-loop control technology, measuring technology, electronics and electrical engineering, to mechanical engineering, robotics and networking for industrial processes.

Enhancements to Wizcon 9.3 include two features for secure integration into enterprise IT systems and for video security in facility management. It integrates support of Active Directory / LDAP, which gives administrators the option to use their IT infrastructure to control login to Wizcon applications. A video management module enables building and facility managers to integrate video streams into their Wizcon application.

ISA will accept nominations for its 2007 Honors and Awards Gala until 10 February 2007. The Society recognizes the achievements of automation professionals around the world with Society Service and Technical awards. Many of the awards do not require the recipient or nominator to be an ISA Member.

Bemis, the world's largest manufacturer of toilet seats, is to implement Barco's PLANTMASTER MES to provide real-time production monitoring, scheduling and operator tracking at its injection molding facility in Burnley, Lancashire, UK.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Mitsubishi Corporation and Duro Felguera, a Spanish heavy machinery manufacturer, have jointly received orders for large-scale flue gas desulfurization (FGD) systems from two major Spanish electricity providers: Iberdrola Generacion, SAU and Endesa Generacion, SA. The FGD system for Iberdrola will be an altogether new installation while that for Endesa is to upgrade a previously delivered FGD system.

PackML is a set of packaging machine language guidelines that have been developed by the OMAC Packaging Workgroup. Packaging machines that follow the PackML guidelines can be more easily integrated into a packaging line and their associated manufacturing execution (MES) systems, minimizing engineering costs and reducing project schedules.

The Silver Crescent Foundation and The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) Education Foundation will help South Carolina middle school students explore career opportunities in engineering and technology.

Industrial Control Software Ltd has been awarded the 2006 Innovation Award by the Northern Offshore Federation in the UK. ICS won the award for a new software product they have just released which will revolutionize the way alarm overrides are handled in the Control Room by eliminating the need for paper logbooks.

ControlNet has been adopted by the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) of the People’s Republic of China as part of a machinery industry standard for the People's Republic of China. This adoption, by one of the world’s leading technology countries, extends nearly the entire family of CIP Networks to China ’s manufacturing industry.

"Motion, Drive & Automation" (MDA) trade fair for power transmission and control will be part of HANNOVER MESSE 2007 (the Hannover Fair). The net display space covers approximately 50,000 square meters, making MDA one of the biggest display areas at HANNOVER MESSE. Around 1,300 international exhibitors will be showing products for power transmission and control from 16 - 20 April 2007 in Halls 19 to 26.