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Alternatives for Automation

G Venkatesh reports.

As the alternative energy sector accelerates, automation suppliers are anxious to get a piece of the action.

Green energy is no longer just a fad to hog the marketplace with. What began as a necessary good in some parts of the world years ago has now evolved into something which can do the whole world...

Show time

Bob Gill, Group Editor

Thursday afternoon at Hannover Fair 2008 and your editor steps up to the reception desk at the booth of a well-known global sensor manufacturer. “Is Mr S here?”“No...

Global Gathering for Gas

Bob Gill reports.

The largest ever Gastech show in its 34-year history took place in Bangkok in March, and as well as all the supplier giants of the industry, process automation players were keen to show off their solutions for the sector.

Beginning back in 1974 in Amsterdam, Gastech – the major international event for the liquid natural gas (LNG), liquid petroleum gas (LPG), and natural gas industries – traditionally...

ABB, Emerson, E+H, Siemens issue WirelessHART statement

In an joint open letter to “Customers, Suppliers, Media and Organizations in the Automation Industry”, four prominent process automation companies have emphasized their belief in t...

Spark your imagination with Advantech

SPARK Your Imagination is a joint initiative between Advantech and Microsoft Windows Embedded. For a limited period of time, and in combination with the PCM-9375 single board computer, Window...

APC highlights energy efficiency at new Singapore facility

APC has set up an Energy Efficient Solutions Center at its new 25,000 sq ft premises at Techpoint, Ang Mo Kio, Singapore, the first-of-its-kind in Southeast Asia. Business visitors and pa...

ICONICS and Kepware partner for OPC-UA

ICONICS and Kepware have signed a partnership agreement to create what is said to be the world’s first total end-to-end OPC-UA solution. The ICONICS OPC-UA KEPServer integrates HMI/SCADA an...

GE Fanuc ties up with Catapult for SCADA

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, a unit of GE Enterprise Solutions, announced that it reached an agreement to globally resell Catapult Software’s iPower SCADA product as a standard Profic...

MTL announces ‘first’ in industrial security

MTL Instruments and Byres Security have released a loadable security module (LSM) for the Tofino Industrial Security Solution that discovers and identifies what devices are on the network and cre...

Honeywell buys Metrologic for US$720 Million

Honeywell International has agreed to pay some US$720 million for Metrologic Instruments, the data capture and collection software company. Metrologic’s operations will be integrated with H...

Portescap India division receives ISO certifications

Mi n i a t u r e m o t o r manufacturer Portescap, a Danaher Motion Company, has announced the award of three ISO certifi cates for its manufacturing facilities in Mumbai, India: ISO 9001:200...

Siemens PLM highlights benefits of design reuse

Siemens PLM Software has announced the expansion of its Fast Track to PLM educational seminar series for SMBs (small to medium-sized businesses), which aims to help manufacturers understand how ...

Rockwell Automation makes software acquisition

Rockwell Automation has reached a definitive agreement to acquire Incuity Software, a supplier of enterprise manufacturing intelligence (EMI) software. Incuity’s software product provide...

Yokogawa and P+F announce fieldbus solution

Yokogawa and Pepperl+Fuchs announce the release of a solution for managing the physical layer of Foundation fieldbus H1. This is being released as one of the diagnostic solutions of Yokogawa&#...

Making History

Mogan Swamy reports.

With the ability to store vast quantities of data from disparate systems, plant historians are quickly becoming a must-have for the modern manufacturing facility.

Industrial processes must be run efficiently and reliably to be able to lower overall production costs. But these processes can be substantially complex, and it is not unheard of to have an inf...

Driving plant performance

From GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Proficy Plant Applications Version 4.4 includes a number of new features that decrease a user’s time-to-value, making it easier for manufacturers t...

Respond rapidly to fires

With a highly responsive ultraviolet (UV) fl ame sensor and advanced signal processing, the FL3111HT UV Flame Detector from General Monitors operates in high temperatures up to 125ºC (257&o...

Greener and faster motor driver IC

Infineon Technologies announces additions to its NovalithIC family of highly integrated driver ICs for motor drive applications, adding RoHS compliant and faster switching versions. This devic...

Embedded computers with multiple connection options

Moxa announced the release of the V460 series of industrialgrade, x86-based computers with multiple connection options for embedded applications. The series includes four models: the ...

Compliance with gas industry standards

The STARDOM Network-based Control System from Yokogawa complies with US gas industry standards and provides data-logging function for the FCN/FCJ autonomous controllers. These enhancements re...

Get the Balance Right

By David Rossi, Ron Atwell, Chris Engdahl, Bas Meyes and David Nguyen.

When increased vibration levels threatened to load-limit the operation of this power station turbine, engineers were able to exploit their training in rotating machinery testing techniques to keep the machine in-service with minimum impact to operations.

Australia’s Northern Territory is a vast outback region rich in natural beauty and mineral deposits. With a land area almost the size of Alaska, a small, dynamic population, and its proxi...

High Expectations

Economic slowdown? The company has never had so many opportunities for growth and we continue to have high expectations for the year, says Keith Nosbusch, Chairman and CEO, Rockwell Automation. He talks to Bob Gill.

BG: The world economy has taken a bit of a hit, especially in the US, this year. How is business for Rockwell Automation? KN: We have not seen any significant decline in...

Beyond the Magic Wand

Madanmohan Rao reports.

While RFID may not have had the magic wand effect as predicted in its earlier hype years, it does deliver value when the appropriate platforms, applications and metrics are devised.

RFID tags on sushi conveyor belts in Japanese restaurants. RFID tags on kids as part of anti-kidnapping surveillance measures in the Philippines. RFID tags on Alzheimer patients in US hospitals...

The New Face of Building Automation

Increasing connectivity options and greater concerns about energy efficiency are just some of the reasons why it’s time to change the traditional view of building automation existing only in communication closets, boiler and fan rooms, says Ken Sinclair.

The building automation industry has developed a new face, not just that which can be projected by digital signage software, but a new face that includes new functionality and form. Buildings a...

Taking the Open Road

Advanced open building systems are available today and manufacturers are beginning to fully take advantage of the opportunities that network protocols provide to improve product functionality, says Ron Bernstein.

The concept of a control networking architecture, which provides fair competitive bidding on all levels of a system and over the life of the system, is something the user market has been demandi...