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By Bill Lydon, Editor Outsourced cyber security services may be a good alternative to maintaining in-house personnel. Keeping up with cyber security is a huge technical challenge and a moving target. It requires major ongoing investment to remain effective in deterring threats and performing damage control after an attack.

By Andy Banathy, Panduit Internal and external factors – namely plant optimization and regulation compliance – are driving plants to bring more industrial compute resources onto the plant floor.

By CamiResearch Cables in motion experience fatigue causing complete or intermittent failures whether or not that motion is constant. Fortunately, there are cable and harness test systems that can easily identify and pinpoint the source of even the most elusive intermittent failure.

By: Jeremiah Stone, GE Not too long ago, diagnosing a problem with a critical asset was a cumbersome process for the automation industry. The Industrial Internet is making the diagnostic process much more straightforward and manageable, particularly with the advent of powerful Remote Monitoring and Diagnostic (RM&D) capabilities. The Oil and Gas industry in particular has been quick to recognize the benefits of RM&D.

By Paul Hodge & Joe Bastone, Honeywell The advantages of optimized project workflow can be realized at both ends of the project schedule. The benefits are essential to ensuring control systems pose the least risk to project schedule and allow for safe, efficient and reliable plant startup and operation.

By Bill Lydon, Editor PAS has developed a new product to sync "as built" documentation with the current installed system, eliminating wasted man-hours, decreasing MTTR (Mean Time To Repair), and aiding with cyber security requirements and regulations.

This article provides an overview of both protocols and discusses their key strengths and applications. It also discusses which one works best in which applications – although there is some overlap in what each can do. What’s more, they can complement each other in joint applications.

By Bill Lydon, Editor To learn more about the Belden's Certified Industrial Network Program, I talked with Brian Oulton, Director of Initiative and Vertical Marketing at Belden. Here is a transcript of that interview.

Vented LVDTs can operate in temperature extremes of -65°F to +400°F (-55°C to +200°C) and operating pressures of 35 kpsi. High temperature ratings are achieved using internal materials rated for these temperatures.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The new high-performance CompactRIO cRIO-9068 controller has a dual core ARM processor and FPGA on the same chip that supports LabVIEW and Real-time Linux. This looks like a great platform for industrial automation applications because it incorporates control, optimization, analytics, and business enterprise interfaces.

By Daniel L. Fenton, Phoenix Contact It is the author’s opinion that integration of the controls network and the IT network became inevitable when the industry chose to use Ethernet as the medium with which to communicate data. The controls industry may choose to be dragged kicking and screaming into the modern communications era, or it can gracefully embrace the change.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The ability to improve manufacturing operations is growing with the application of software that can leverage lower cost computing. More than 30 years ago, ULTRAMAX Corporation commercialized an interesting software product to optimize the operating performance of industrial processes. I recently caught up with the Founder and CEO to learn more about the product and their philosophy and perspective of industrial process optimization.

By: Christophe Romatier, Honeywell Process Solutions A centralized remote collaboration center makes the best use of resources by creating a hub where experts from a variety of disciplines can access information, troubleshoot and optimize production facilities—all from a single location.

By Jean Carl, Macro Sensors Blog discusses how, in the European market, sensors specified for use within potentially explosive atmospheres must be certified to ATEX standards.

By Kenneth Tom, Wurldtech Security Technologies Today, the smart grid is under attack. We need to protect this infrastructure and provide proper visibility into the network threats by taking advantage of the latest technology for Industrial Control System (ICS) security.

By Dave Cronberger, Cisco Software defined networks (SDNs) are a hot topic at the enterprise-level. The reasons vary – but they’re piling up. The most promising – and potentially profitable – benefit of an SDN is its potential in making the network directly programmable.

By Elsa Madrigal and Dan McGrath, Panduit Multiple-in-Multiple-Out (MIMO) is a new technology adopted by new IEEE 802.11Wi-Fi standards. Under 802.11n and 802.11ac, the antennas in the access points receive various reflected signals and, using digital signal processing, stitch them together into a unified, clear signal.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Siemens continues to make large investments in software for manufacturing industries aimed at increasing the productivity of design, engineering, commissioning, operations, and maintenance in discrete and process industries. Siemens COMOS is targeted at process industries and is analogous to Siemens PLM for the discrete industries.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The Iron Bridge plant was originally built in the 1980s to treat about 5 million gallons of wastewater per day. After several modifications and upgrades, it can now treat and reclaim up to 40 million gallons in that same 24-hour period. The facilities standardized on Siemens controls, drives, power distribution, and Profibus and PROFINET communications network.

By Stewart Thompson, CAS DataLoggers Power Factor (PF) is the ratio of real power to the apparent power flowing to the load from the source. From a business standpoint it’s important to understand how having a low Power Factor raises your plant or factory’s power bill.