Control Engineering articles from December 2007

Control Engineering archives from December 2007

When is a PLC like a typewriter?
December 1, 2007... Thomas R. Kurfess The other day while visiting a plant, I sat in on an interesting discussion related to the future of programmable logic controllers (PLCs). The PLCs at this plant were aging and needed to be replaced and the conversation...

Process analyzers.
December 1, 2007... Peter Welander, Control Engineering When there is a need to monitor a process variable that extends beyond the 'big four' (pressure, flow, temperature, and level), some type of process analyzer usually does the job. And this category of...

Collaborative production systems.
December 1, 2007... Renee Robbins, Control Engineering Despite the drive for integration between automation systems and operations management/enterprise systems, barriers still exist. Manufacturing engineers are beginning to understand the benefits of...

Connecting the Plant and the Enterprise: Taking Automation to the Next Level.
December 1, 2007... C.G. Masi, Control Engineering If you thought advanced robotics and high-speed machine automation systems were cool, wait 'til you see factory automation at the next level! Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO) recently hosted...

Asset Management and the Search for Actionable Intelligence.(Company overview)
December 1, 2007... Frank O Smith for Control Engineering What do you get when the control layer joins up with the enterprise layer of information? New strategic business information, and a more prominent role for controls engineers. Mike Brooks, staff...

HART Helps Keep the Heat On.
December 1, 2007... Hank Hogan for Control Engineering By designing in the advanced communication and self-diagnostics capabilities of HART technology, Norway's StatoilHydro and its partners started efficiently delivering natural gas to the U.K. this year....

Video via Ethernet, now.
December 1, 2007... Mark T. Hoske, Control Engineering Video on the plant floor can help with operations, maintenance, repairs, training, and other plant-floor activities to decrease downtime. A key enabling tool is Ethernet with video bandwidth capabilities....

From the East, globally.(Report)
December 1, 2007... Staff In Shanghai for Advantech's third World Partner Conference , Control Engineering Asia group editor Bob Gill finds an ambitious Eastern company ready to take globalization to the next level. Oh, East is East, and West is West, and...

Machine Vision Lens selection Makes the Difference.
December 1, 2007... Timne Bilton, Edmund Optics Machine vision adds a new dimension to industrial control systems, providing input on the size, position and orientation of parts on an assembly line, but proper lens selection is critical for machine vision to...

Improving PLC Compatibility and Function Flexibility.
December 1, 2007... Jim McMahon, Zebra Communications Compatibility issues can bring an entire upgrade project to a standstill. When original equipment manufacturer (OEM), Weiler Engineering, Inc., upgraded the drive systems on its aseptic blow-fill-seal...

Sometimes its personnel.
December 1, 2007... Dennis Brandl Sometimes it's easy to forget about the people aspect of control systems. Multiple regulatory rules, laws, and internal procedures require that people who perform shop floor actions are unequivocally identified, are...

How to control quality: Err not.
December 1, 2007... Mark T. Hoske, editor-in-chief Is it just too obvious to say that the best way to ensure quality products go out the door is to not make errors in the first place? Perhaps. Less obvious is how to effectively design products and workflow to...

A look back, A look ahead.
December 1, 2007... Marc Moschetto, Editorial Director It may seem hard to believe, but yet another year is drawing to a close. For most, the end of the year marks a time of rich tradition - a time to reflect upon the year that has passed and look forward to...

Schneider Electric opens new Automation and Control Innovation Center.
December 1, 2007... Staff 'Customer-focused' has become something of a catchphrase in automation and control circles these days. Such buzzwords are easy to include in a corporate brochure, but a more telling barometer of a company's dedication to the customer...

A brighter New Year's Eve, courtesy of Lapp USA.
December 1, 2007... Staff Lapp USA will supply the cable to help light up the New Year's Eve sky in New York City in the upgraded lighted globe that descends during the final countdown to 2008. On its 100th birthday, the New Year's Eve globe received a...

Announcing the 2008 Systems Integrator of the Year winners.
December 1, 2007... Staff It's December once again... that means that it's time for our annual Systems Integrator Guide. For over a decade, Vance VanDoren has been spearheading the creation of this annual listing and - for the second consecutive year - we've...

Advantech conference highlights future growth, global strengths.(Advantech Company Ltd.)(Conference notes)
December 1, 2007... Staff More than 400 attendees from 35 countries - including Control Engineering editors from North America, Asia and China editions - attended Advantech's World Partner Conference in Shanghai. According to Chaney Ho, Advantech's VP of...

Kontron receives Intel honors.
December 1, 2007... Staff Intel selected embedded computer builder Kontron to receive its '2007 Multi-core Alignment Award of Excellence' in the Alliance Hardware Member category. The award honors the Intel Communications Alliance member having the largest...

Standard Automation & Control becomes Wonderware West.
December 1, 2007... Staff Standard Automation & Control, LP, a member of the MTL Instruments Group, has officially changed its name to Wonderware West. The organization has represented Wonderware for nearly 16 years and has enjoyed a significant amount of...

Manufacturers hit hard by litigation; survey reveals 91% faced new lawsuits last year.(Survey)
December 1, 2007... Staff For the past four years, the prominent Washington, D.C.-based law firm of Fulbright & Jaworski has been conducting its annual Litigations Trend Survey, and once again manufacturers topped the list of industries hardest hit by...

Advanced Energy boosts hybrid vehicle efficiency.
December 1, 2007... Staff Thanks to the 'greening of America' and skyrocketing fuel costs, the Toyota Prius has become something of a phenomenon in recent years. With a city/highway/combined fuel economy of 48/45/46 miles per gallon respectively, the vehicle...

By the Numbers.
December 1, 2007... Staff 7 'Tips for Strategizing Holiday Office Schedules' include some fair-minded pointers for short-staffed workplaces, including rotating from year to year who gets blocks of time off during the holidays and sharing must-do...

Network test tools.
December 1, 2007... Staff dtmInspector 2.0 (Beta) from FDT Group and M&M Industrial Software adds certification tests for Foundation Fieldbus, Interbus and the DeviceNet extension to CIP to its existing Profibus and HART protocol tests. The addition to the...

TED, ETTN pressure/temperature measuring.
December 1, 2007... Staff With TED/YTED and ETTN/YTTN ranges, Baumer provides robust measuring instruments for pressure and temperature control for process management. The stainless steel devices are suitable for severe industrial environments. Based on...

Fanless 15-in. touchpanel PC.
December 1, 2007... Staff The Industrial Automation Group of Advantech unveiled the TPC-1570H, a touchpanel PC built with a 15-in. XGA TFT liquid crystal display (LCD) screen. It combines high performance with low voltage and a heat sink to create a fanless...

Fast control with industrial Ethernet.
December 1, 2007... Staff Beckhoff Automaton has introduced eXtreme Fast Control (XFC) technology, a combination of the company's PC-based and industrial Ethernet technologies. The control solution is based on the company's highly optimized control and...

4- and 8-point annunciators.
December 1, 2007... Staff Precision Digital Corp. has announced Vigilantes, a line of compact 4- and 8-point alarm annunciators that provide features previously found in annunciators three or four times their size. Housed in shallow-depth, 1/8 DIN enclosures...

Explosion-proof laser level transmitter.
December 1, 2007... Staff K-Tek has launched the SureShot 140XP Explosion-Proof, Smart Laser Level Transmitter, a device designed for precise level, distance, and position measurement of dry bulk solids, opaque liquids and slurries in challenging...

Underwater force/torque sensor.
December 1, 2007... Staff The IP68 Underwater DAQ Sensor is a force/torque sensor for use in underwater (fresh water) environments. ATI Industrial Automation reports that its sensors are used in Naval research applications and tank testing for aerospace...

PLCs for process heating applications.
December 1, 2007... Staff Turnkey PLC-based process heating control systems for applications such as drying, shrinking, pre-heating substrates and de-flashing plastic parts have been released by Malcom Company. The systems include PLCs that can be...

Compact SCADA system.
December 1, 2007... Staff Semaphore has introduced T-BOX Lite compact remote monitoring and control system for SCADA applications. The advanced telemetry system is said to extend the T-BOX product family to small, decentralized applications where its push and...

Integrated PLC/HMI with color screen.
December 1, 2007... Staff Color displays enable machine builders to reveal greater details, display vivid, attention-grabbing alarms, and in general brighten up their systems. Unitronics' new Vision350 incorporates all these color advantages into a compact...

Powerful rackmount computer.
December 1, 2007... Staff The Kontron Industrial Silent Server (KISS) 1U industrial computer offers the latest Intel multi-core processing capabilities in an extremely quiet ( The Kontron KISS 1U is offered with the long-life Kontron PCI-960 PICMG 1.3...

Programmable Logic Controllers.
December 1, 2007... Dick Johnson, Control Engineering Programming software is a bigger differentiator than hardware features, say respondents, who are also looking for a variety of networking options Nothing takes the fun out of a control engineering...

CAM benefits, CAM changes.(Computer aided manufacturing)
December 1, 2007... By Peter Roost, Planit Holdings Ltd. Worldwide, 30-odd companies are developing and marketing computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) software. That is almost unique in any mature business-and is increasingly unsustainable. Consolidation,...

ArchestrA™ Certified SIs.
December 1, 2007... Staff A & E Engineering, Inc. United States ABIS s.c. Poland Actemium - Starren B.V. Netherlands Advanced Automation LLP United States ÅF Denmark AF Consult AB Sweden Affinity...

Wonderware Certified SIs Worldwide.
December 1, 2007... Staff ACT L S.A. Applied Control Technology, Inc. Armony ASSI Sistemas e Instrumentacion ATCOM Datensysteme GmbH Atkins plc Automated Control Solutions, Ltd. Axis Projects SA de CV Barry D. Payne &...

The Information Empowered Enterprise: Driving Operational Excellence.
December 1, 2007... Dr. Peter G. Martin The future is built on the past, a truism profoundly relevant to operational excellence in manufacturing, according to Dr. Peter G. Martin. 'You can only know where you need to go by understanding how you got where you...

All Together Now: Integrated Development for IT and Automation Applications.
December 1, 2007... Staff All issues critical to single-plant system viability become exponentially more critical and interdependent with global plant system rollouts. Complex technical issues - from design, to integration, development, deployment, change...

Unquestionable Quality: Inside the Wonderware System Platform 3.0 & In Touch 10.0 HMI S.I. Beta Program.
December 1, 2007... Staff In bringing to market System Platform 3.0 and InTouch 10.0 software - representing major advances in the integration and power of its industrial application platform and HMI visualization systems - Wonderware placed considerable...

Standardization for Multi-Site Implementations: Best Practices for Multi-Site Rollouts.
December 1, 2007... Staff While globalization has made the world much smaller, it has concurrently become more complex. There are greater pressures to reduce costs and improve agility by increasing collaboration across the plant and the global enterprise....

World Class System Integration.
December 15, 2007... Marc Moschetto and Vance VanDoren, Ph.D., P.E. Control Engineering Control Engineering recognizes the best in the business with our second annual System Integrator of the Year awards. Since the dawn of the industrial automation...

'Radical Solutions' Deliver Rewards.
December 15, 2007... Staff SI helps a salt producer achieve multi-plant consistency and IT/manufacturing integration. For the past 13 years, TEC Engineering of Wichita, KS has been working with a major salt producer to completely overhaul its networking,...

Innovating to Succeed.
December 15, 2007... Staff System integrator Ai Control Systems helped its customer translate regulated medical waste expertise into an innovative new machine that could be sold worldwide. Optimize processes, enhance accountability and streamline...

Phased Upgrade Improves Dairy.
December 15, 2007... Jeff Pearse, Seiberling Associates, Inc. Problems with a 45-year-old relay-based system made a clear case for upgrading process and clean in place (CIP) operations with a new PAC/HMI platform. A major U.S. dairy producer contacted...

Adieu, Adios, Farewell.
December 15, 2007... Norm O'Leary, Executive Director It's been some time now since I was first asked to organize and manage CSIA's 1999 conference scheduled for Clearwater, FL. The association was searching for a new Executive Director and I agreed to...

The Integration Resource.
December 15, 2007... Staff How to use Control Engineering's 2008 Automation Integrator Guide in print and at www.controleng.com/integrators You know you can use a hand. But finding the right resource with the right skills and the proper product/project...