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Business Technologies Boost Engineering

David Greenfield Control Engineering

Plant floor-to-front office integration efforts of the 1990s are being rekindled with new technologies, a host of concrete business reasons, and a different area of focus. A Control Engineering subscriber poll tells what’s really happening.

The biggest buzz in the automation industry these days is all about linking the plant floor with front office business systems—a linkage that will be referred to as automation to-enterprise in this ar...

Secure your network

Raymond Foo Group Editor

According to the organizer of the Hannover Fair, Deutsche Messe AG, two significant trends are now emerging in industrial automation: wireles...

What are the Benefits of Ethernet for Industrial Users?

Andreas Huhmann HARTING Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG

The initial push towards Industrial Ethernet was motivated by two factors: for one, increasing the performance of distributed automation control systems on the network, and secondly, to achieve greate...

Healthy Machines

Mark T. Hoske Control Engineering

If your machines aren’t telling you how they feel, you’re probably wasting money on unplanned outages and unneeded maintenance. Use diagnostics and analysis tools to help keep equipment well and operating at peak performance.

"Excuse me, I’m not feeling well: slowing here, running hot there. A few noncritical errors are cropping up, and my cutting edge is getting dull. Don’t push me past 93% capacity, if you’re relying on ...

Good medicine: machine health products

Perhaps thousands of products contribute to or monitor machine health, to help avoid the bitter pill of breakdowns. A few examples follow. For many more companies or to search on related categories fo...

I/O Modules

Mark T. Hoske Control Engineering

Input/output systems find more use with PLCs; Ethernet and wireless are among top 5 means of communications. Respondents expect to buy more than in 2004.

I/O modules are applied most often as a slot in a PLC system or as distributed I/O systems; slot PLC connections saw the largest growth. Top five connecting communications are Ethernet, 4-20 mA, Modbu...

Haptic Controls: a Touching Experience

Peter Cleaveland Control Engineering

Providing tactile output is increasing in applications as benefits grow and costs drop.

Most of us interact with computers using our senses of sight and hearing. In some cases, however, the most appropriate sense to use is that of touch. Increasingly, computer technology is recognizing t...

Does your safety-instrumented system really require SIL 3?

Paul Gruhn, L&M Engineering and Dave Reynolds , MTL Open System Technologies

Three safety integrity levels (SIL) were described in the ANSI/ISA-84.00.01-1996 standard. Revised standard ANSI/ISA 84.00.01-2004 (IEC 61511-1 mod) now includes the higher SIL 4. SILs are a measure o...

Coriolis meter solves two-phase flow issue with CO2 for enhanced oil recovery

Wade M. Mattar Invensys Process Systems

Accurate flow measurement in changing conditions is now possible.

Using carbon dioxide (CO2) for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is a proven method to greatly increase yields in mature oil fields. ...

Michael H.Train, President of Emerson Process Management Asia-Pacific

Michael H. Train assumed office as the President of Emerson Process Management Asia-Pacific in 2002, where he has been a significant contributor for Emerson over the past fifteen years. He shares his considerable experience of the region with CE Asia.

CE Asia: How has the process automation business in Asia Pacific changed over the years? Train: I have witnessed a signific...

Volker Schulz from PROFIBUS at Siemens Pte. Ltd.

A well-known figure at fieldbus seminars around the Asian circuit, Volker Schulz has been the Technical Marketing Manager–PROFIBUS at Siemens Pte. Ltd. Since 2004. He is also Vice President of the ISA Chapter in Singapore. He shares is experience and in-depth knowledge about fieldbuses with CE Asia.

CE Asia: Tell us more about the proliferation of digital fieldbus technology? Schulz: The idea of networking field instrume...

Emerson extends PlantWeb digital architecture

Emerson Process Management invited the media to witness the launch of Smart Remote Automation in Singapore. This technology extends its Pla...

Invensys wins automation maintenance contract with Sinopec’s SPC group in China

Invensys Process Systems has been awarded a long-term maintenance contract with Sinopec Shanghai Petrochemical Company Ltd. (SPC), one of the largest subsidiaries of China Petroleum and Chemical Corpo...

Experts explore role of digital technologies in oil and gas business optimization

Invensys Process Systems joined BP, Chevron, and Shell in a presentation and panel discussion on PRODML, PRODuction xML, a new open standard for digital technology for production optimization in the o...

GE Fanuc Embedded Systems to purchase assets of Condor Engineering

GE Fanuc Embedded Systems announced that it has signed an agreement to purchase the assets of Condor Engineering including test and simulation products, embedded boards and core technology to meet the...

Emerson to digitally automate India’s largest life sciences plant

Emerson Process Management announced that it had won a major contract from Reliance Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd. to supply PlantWeb digital automation architecture and solution services to their new biopha...

90% of the world’s engineers Asian residents by 2010?

U.S. has a diminishing capability to maintain competitive manufacturing leadership and parity, said James W. Bagley, chairman of Lam Research Corp., in a speech to San Jose State University’s College ...

TFT LCD manufacturer sites second China plant

AU Optronics Corp. (AUO) has selected Xiamen in Southern China as the site of its second Chinese manufacturing plant. The move, says the company, is in-line with its “ongoing belief in treating its cu...

Don’t overlook S/N ratio

Bill McGovern Dataforth Corp.

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is used as a system figure of merit and as a system design parameter in communicating information, whether for an automated process control system or for spacecraft applica...

Real DCS functionality

Foxboro Automation, a unit of Invensys Process Systems, has extended its low-cost Foxboro A2 distributed control system (DCS) with a compact new product that combines control and I/O technology into a...

Thermal imager for industrial maintenance

Fluke Corporation is expanding its line of infrared thermography products with the Fluke Ti20 Thermal Imager, designed for use by industrial m...

Coriolis mass flow sensor

Emerson Process Management announced the release of its Brooks Instrument Quantim Coriolis family of low-flow products. Complementing Emerson’s ...

Compact safety relays

PNOZsigma feature housings with the smallest width of 12.5 millimetres. The reset mode, operating mode and time functions can be set via s...

Flexible UPS

Power specialist, XP, has announced a new series of uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) that employ a sing le, standard battery across th...

Slim I/O cable connector

Tyco Electronics has introduced the Slim I/O cable connector for panel applications. This connector system provides power and/or signal I/O capability for short and long-reach cable. Optional passive ...

Open, integrated logic controller

MKS Instruments Inc. has introduced the RMU Linux Logic Controller; an open, integrated platform for real-time automation control, data ac...

Vision sensor with remote-head camera

Cognex Corporation announced the In-Sight 5400R, a remote-head camera version of the industrial grade In-Sight 5400 vision sensor. In-Sigh...