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By Bill Lydon, Editor GE Intelligent Platforms recently announced their Proficy Monitoring & Analysis Software Suite and believes the Suite is the first to address industrial big data by combining industrial Historian technology with Hadoop (High-availability distributed object-oriented platform) technology for asset health with process optimization.

Fiber Bragg grating (FBG)-based sensing technology originally developed by NASA represents a 20-fold improvement over existing sensing solutions and could represent a quantum leap forward for industries as diverse as automotive, aerospace, oil & gas, nuclear energy, medical devices, and wind energy.

By Bill Lydon, Editor At the recent Honeywell User Group (HUG) 2013 conference, Honeywell announced new services under the Assurance 360 program for owners of Honeywell systems. The overall goal of these programs is a reduction of unplanned events, faster problem resolution, and better plant performance.

By Greg Hood, Rockwell Automation In end-user facilities that heavily rely on legacy equipment, the right line-integration system can provide real-time insights to prevent and diagnose production issues.

By Mike Hannah, Rockwell Automation Forecasts say that industrial automation will make up the majority of the Internet of Things by 2025, and Internet Protocol (IP)-addressable devices are the key enabling force that will get industry there.

By Jason Norris and Jason Nicholl, Phoenix Contact A modular approach to Fieldbus can help achieve maximum availability and system integrity. but communication interruptions typically happen. Modular field-based diagnostics can help achieve maximum availability and integrity of a fieldbus system.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Honeywell Process Solutions recently introduced a new program called LEAP, which stands for Lean Execution of Automation Projects. LEAP changes the way projects are executed. LEAP leverages a number of Honeywell hardware and software developments to improve the efficiency of project execution, including virtualization, Experion Universal Process I/O and cloud engineering.

By Bob Voss, Panduit Industries are rapidly adopting wireless networks because of their many benefits on the plant floor, including convenience, mobility, reduced cabling and lower labor costs compared to wired networks. Here are four steps to help plant operators establish wireless zones on the plant floor effectively.

By Paul Gruhn, Rockwell Automation Changes in technology have led to a variety of recent developments in process safety, with many suppliers releasing new systems that significantly depart from the past. These do’s and don’ts can help you choose the right safety-instrumented system for your process.

As result of adopting the Internet as remote access carrier, the rapid increase in new technologies and trends in the IT industry has become a key discussion topic for the automation industry. New buzzwords starting to be adopted by the industrial solution vendors just adds to the decision maker’s confusion and uncertainty.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Fluke recently introduced Fluke Connect, a system which allows maintenance technicians to wirelessly transmit measurement data from their test tools to their smart phones. There is a lot of hype about the Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing. To date, from what I have seen on the market, Fluke Connect is the most useful, productivity-increasing industry solution based on these technologies.

Simple To Complex Machinery Guarding Solution From a simple to complex machine guarding, Tapeswitch Corporation offers a full product line of trapped key power isolation and machine access solutions that is custom configured to your machinery power type, access point structures doors, hatches, gates, control panel lock-out, and power isolation operation and trapped key access lock-out component configuration.

Tapeswitch Corporation Offers : New Programmable, Mini, Type 3, CAT 3 Safety Laser Scanner For A Simple To Complex Machine Guarding/Area Guarding Solution for Machine Builders and Users.

By Bill Lydon, Editor At Automation Fair 2013, I spoke with Rockwell Automation’s Frank Kulaszewicz about the progress on their new architecture developments. The new controller architecture will consist of a backplane and each module will have its own IP address. Every motor drive, intelligent overload, intelligent sensor, intelligent light curtain, and other device will have an IP address.

By Andrew Stuart, Honeywell Process Solutions Today, plant personnel have access to new human-machine interface (HMI) solutions providing the ability to display and interact with system or plant-wide data. This enables high-quality collaboration with the field or with experts in other locations.

By Bill Lydon, Editor With this acquisition, Schneider Electric significantly enhanced its position to serve the process industries and now has a complete portfolio of products to serve the entire industrial and process automation industry. This article highlights a few key aspects of the integration of the two companies.

By Bill Lydon, Editor Helmuth Ludwig, CEO of Siemens Industry Sector USA, provided his views on the 2014 manufacturing outlook and other industry topics, including the first live display of an assembly line at the Auto Show in Detroit, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the first assembly line.

By Macro Sesnsors Repeatability and resolution contribute to overall measurement error, and are usually expressed as a percentage of full-scale output. These parameters apply to both AC- and DC-operated LVDTs.

By PULS Pte Ltd During a causal lunch with a team of Engineers, there was a discussion on the various Hazardous Location approvals. The world does not agree on uniform requirements…thus several approvals is needed. Here is a summary of the various approvals and whether PULS' power supplies meet them.

As the year draws to an end, we wanted to take the opportunity to recap on the trends QA Graphics saw in 2013 and share what’s coming up in 2014. QA Graphics has been involved in the building automation industry for 10 years, driving the change for more realistic graphics and interactive solutions. The industry has taken a big leap this year, embracing high-end graphic solutions, and it will only continue in 2014.