See Archive Page for earlier news.

30/8/03 New developer's workbench features significant enhancements for wide array of process industry applications - Triconex, has announced the release of a new version of the Tristation 1131 Developer's Workbench. This enables engineers to efficiently create and edit programs and control function blocks for Tricon and Trident) Triple Modular Redundant (TMR) controllers. Triconex TMR controllers are the benchmark for safety and critical control applications in process industries such as refining and petrochemical plants. One of the most common applications for Triconex controllers is in the safety-instrumented system (SIS) of a petrochemical plant. TMR controllers can be used by process plants to protect human life, the environment and plant assets. Triconex is part of Invensys.
Hot company - Start magazine in the US has named GE Fanuc Automation as one of the 'Hottest Companies of 2003'. Each year, the Start Hottest Companies list seeks to identify and honour companies that can help improve the overall profitability and efficiency of manufacturers. This is the second consecutive year that GE Fanuc has received this designation. 29/8/03

Speakers announced - The speakers have been announced for the second Read-out Forum, to be held at IRCHEM in Cork on 16th September. This Forum addresses the issues of Traceability, Data processing in real time, and Security, which should be of particular concern to those who are involved in the Instrumentation and Control areas of the industries at the forefront in using technology, and who are aware of their vulnerability and accountability in the wake of the events of September 11th. Speakers from industry - Ulli Mueller of ABB, Nick Taylor of Emerson Process Management, Chris Morse of Honeywell and Sean Cahill of Siemens - will respond by describing their company approaches to problems presented by the four keynote speakers.
The event will be chaired by Andrew Bond of Industrial Automation Intelligence (Picture).

Programmable 2.8 kW system power supplies - The XFR Series of power supplies, now available from TTi (Thurlby Thandar Instruments), is a range of high-power (2.8 kW) units with various combinations of voltage and current capability. The series utilises 'soft switching' or zero-voltage technology. This virtually eliminates switching transients, and noise performance is closerto linear levels. In addition, efficiency is increased, heat generation is decreased, and stress on the switching transistors is greatly reduced, improving reliability.

Magazine marks 50th anniversary by exploring technical achievements - What are the most important technological contributions to the advancement of automation, instrumentation, and control technologies, and who were the catalysts? Those are the questions InTech magazine editors asked more than 80 instrumentation and control experts as they celebrated a significant milestone for the magazine. InTech, published by ISA The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, observes 50 years of continuous circulation with its August 2003 issue. Talking with people like Dick Morley, designer of the first programmable logic controllers; Walter Bajek, who pioneered a multitude of process control innovations during his half-century career with United Oil Products (UOP); and Dennis Wisnosky, named by Fortune magazine one of the "five heroes of manufacturing," InTech editors have developed an impressive list of events and individuals who shaped the world of automation + control. Key events like the conversion to digital technology. And, of course, the advent of the Internet brought far-reaching changes to the world of measurement and control. Their list of the 50 most influential innovators reads like a "Who's Who in the World of Inventors and Company Founders." In addition to Morley, Bajek, and Wisnosky, InTech cites James Watt, the Wright brothers, Mark C. Honeywell, the Siemens brothers, James Truchard, Bill Gates, and Francis Greg Shinsky.

Founding sponsor honours memory of fieldbus champion - The Fieldbus Foundation has announced the inaugural donation to the James O. Gray-Fieldbus Foundation Scholarship Fund. Invensys, Foxboro's parent company, has donated $25,000 to honor the memory of James O. Gray, a former employee, long-time Fieldbus Foundation supporter, and friend and colleague to many in the automation industry, who died in 2002. The donation has earned Invensys a "Founding Sponsor" designation.
New Marketing Vice-President named - Summit Microelectronics, a leading supplier of intelligent power management semiconductors for networking, communications and computing, has appointed Rick Davies vice-president of worldwide marketing and business development. He reports to Chuck Berghoff, president and CEO.

Strategic partnership for Northern Europe - GE Fanuc Automation is forming a strategic partnership with the Nordic distributor Novotek. The new distributor contract, signed Aug 18, 2003, now not only allows Novotek to sell GE Fanuc's Industrial IT software, but also the rest of their automation offering like controllers, panels and drives in the Nordic. This way, Novotek now is able to offer a complete set of automation products to their customers for implementing fully integrated automation solutions.

Over 120 pages of new content, including white papers, customer testimonials, and free online courses on new site upgrade - Emerson Process Management today announced the unveiling of a new PlantWeb website that brings together a wealth of information to help manufacturers achieve more than 2% improvement in efficiency of existing operations and save more than 30% on projects. The new website is unique in the breadth and depth of customer results presented, based on Emerson's worldwide and industry-wide run time with its innovative PlantWeb digital plant architecture.
Leading biotechnologygroup selects software for its manufacturing sites - Automsoft the provider of advanced database software designed specifically to manage production data for process industries in a secure environment, today announced a multi-million dollar deal with Genzyme Corporation. Genzyme, a leading biotechnology company, is deploying Automsoft's RAPID-Pharma across its primary therapeutic manufacturing sites.
New Book guides engineers in control systems design and upgrades - "Successful Instrumentation and Control Systems Design" by Michael D. Whitt, the latest reference book from ISA - The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society, offers a complete how-to guide for designing and upgrading instrumentation and control systems. A companion CD-ROM includes interactive tools that facilitate the successful design, management, and maintenance of projects.
Speaker announced - Dr. Larry Faulkner, President of the University of Texas at Austin, will present a Plenary Lecture, "Good Chemical Measurements and Good Public Policies," to open the Program at PITTCON 2004 (Chicago March 7-12, 2004).

Check valves optimise system integrity - even at extreme temperatures - Parker Instrumentation has launched a new instrumentation check valve which is optimised for reliable operation at extreme temperatures, and high pressures. High integrity is assured by means of a metal seat, allowing safe operation over an extended temperature range from -148 to +482degC, and at pressures up to 6,000PSI CWP (-100 to +900degF, up to 413 bar).
Summit to address manufacturers' challenges - The Manufacturing Enterprise Solutions Association International (MESA) executive summit Achieving Business Success through Manufacturing Excellence (Sept. 7-10) brings together leading manufacturing companies, industry luminaries and key industry analysts to address the critical challenges facing process and discrete manufacturers. Highlights at this year's executive summit include keynote presentations by Microsoft and PeopleSoft, and the 2003 Manufacturing Excellence Awards finalists will discuss their industry leading strategies and implementations for improving manufacturing performance across the enterprise.

Clinic offer for EMC pre-compliance testing - Schaffner, the market-leading supplier of EMC components and Test Equipment, are offering to put their broad knowledge of EMC applications at the disposal of electronic system designers to provide a service the company calls their "Quick Look Clinic" This service is available at their screened room in Wokingham (England) and provides a half-day or full day EMC assessment of a product, covering most Conducted Emission and Immunity Standards. Pre-compliance testing allows the manufacturer to validate their product, and expose any potential EMC problems before submission to costly test houses for final approvals. Schaffner will readily advise on solutions to any EMC issues that may be discovered and can make available the widest range of standard filters or cost effective custom solution.
"Buy-back" offer to beat tester obsolescence - The basic standard for testing immunity of electronic equipment to Electrical Fast Transients (EFT), EN 61000-4-4, is soon to change. This standard was published in 1995 and is used as one of the immunity tests called up in the generic standards and all product specific standards. Amendment 2 was published in 2001 and is due to become part of the EN 61000-4-4 standard on July 1 2004. On this date all of the older generation of EFT testers currently in use will become non-compliant and therefore obsolete.
In a second release today Schaffner tell us that they are offering a service to anyone carrying out EFT testing in which they will advise if test equipment currently being used, from any manufacturer at all, will meet the requirements of EN61000-4-4 including Amendment 2. Should any such test equipment be found to be non-compliant Schaffner are also offering to buy back the redundant equipment, again from any manufacturer, against the purchase of a new, compliant Schaffner product. This offer is not restricted to Schaffner customers only but to the whole EMC testing community.

New business unit head appointed - Invensys has announced that Ryan Roberts has been appointed vice president and general manager of its Avantis business group. He will lead Invensys initiatives to develop and market Avantis enterprise asset management solutions, which improve resource productivity by driving down operating costs, minimising the risk of unplanned downtime and maximising financial return on capital assets
PID tips - A new ControlSoft publication, PID Loop Tuning Tips Pocket Guide," has been announced. This six-page publication was recently createdto give engineers a short, easy-to-use guide to tuning PID loops, and itincludes a reference section that summarizes many of the more common controllers available on today's market.
New version of open automation solutions CD is now available - Sixnet's free data acquisition and control CDs - available through their website - have become a standard resource in the informed industrial engineers' tool box. A completely revamped Open Automation Solutions CD has just arrived. The new CD contains the latest version (2.2) of SIXNET's I/O Tool Kit, and an extensive library of open Linux software and resources. The CD also features the new "Best of Both Worlds" presentation which shows how familiar Windows tools can be used to manage and configure their Linux IPm controllers and RTUs, rendering the Linux inside "transparent" to users who don't know any Linux.

Customers help teenagers with cancer - Harting Ltd., the supplier of interconnection solutions for the electrical and electronics industries, recently presented a cheque for £500 to the UK's Teenage Cancer Trust. The cheque resulted from a recent customer survey, where every response generated a £5 donation to the Trust. Commenting on the presentation, Richard Wood, Managing Director said: 'The Teenage Cancer Trust is an independent charity whose aim is to help teenagers come to terms with and fight cancer in an environment designed specifically for their age group. The right environment is particularly important for young people faced with this kind of trauma during a period that should be one of the happiest and most exciting of their lives.

Manufacturing Excellence Conference in Cork to discuss automation and asset aanagement in the Irish pharmaceutical industry - An event presenting technology and experience relevant to the pharmaceutical industry in Ireland will be held in Cork from 22-23 October. Entitled "Manufacturing Excellence Ireland", the conference will focus on batch process automation and asset management. Sponsored by Emerson Process Management, the two day event will provide pharmaceutical industry examples of what can be achieved using the intelligent instrumentation and digital or fieldbus communications available within PlantWeb digital plant architecture, and what the future developments will be in this area. Delegates can choose to attend for one or two days, as appropriate.
ME conference held earlier this year in England
New range of blower packages offers quieter operation and more choice - BOC Edwards has announced a new range of blower packages for industrial applications. Silent Flow Plus is a major development of the popular Silent Flow product line, offering compact design, quiet operation and compliance with the latest European directives. For easy selection of the optimum package for any application, the new range offers nearly twice as many blower sizes.
Flexible high-speed laser coding of labels in brewing application - Carlsberg Bryggerier (Tuborg-Fredericia bryggeri, Denmark) has selected Alltec, as a supplier of laser security coding solutions. The new range of AllPrint Smart S high speed lasers were chosen as they offer a responsive and flexible solution to the ever changing needs of security and quality coding of beverage labels.

Capitalism observed - The latest edition of Jim Pinto's enews continues his examination of Capitalism. Provocatively entitled "Globalisation ...and the curruption of Capitalism" it includes the following ditty from Rich Merritt, Senior Technical Editor of Control magazine,:
I want to be a director
With a great big boardroom seat.
I want to be a director
'Cuz six figures are so sweet!
I want to be a director
Seize opportunities when they knock.
I want to be a director
With a million shares of stock!
The rest of Rich Merrit's Article
He also shares with readers some of the views of Andrew Bond of IAI on Industry Solutions, the jewel in Honeywell's crown.
Andrew Bond is chairing the Read-out Forum on 16th September 2003
PC-based data-acquisition system combines high performance with flexible multi-channel capabilities - The new MX100 DAQmaster from Yokogawa is a PC-based data-acquisition system that combines high-speed performance with flexible multi-channel capabilities and a high withstand voltage for the most demanding applications. For high-speed measurement, a measurement interval of only 10 ms across 24 channels (or 100 ms across 60 channels) is achieved. It is also possible to carry out measurements using a combination of three different measurement intervals, with the intervals being individually set for each module. This means that higher speed processes, such as pressure or flow, can be monitored and correlated with slower measurements such as temperature.

1 MHz AC/DC current probe for peak current measurements to 500A - LEM has introduced the PR55 current probe for AC and DC current measurements up to 50 ARMS and pulse current measurements up to 500 A peak with high accuracy at frequencies up to 1 MHz. The new probe is ergonomic, robust and easy-to-use. It weighs only 150 g, has a 12 mm aperture and can be used with all common types of scope with BNC plugs. Designed for applications including switch mode power supplies, USPs and other electronic circuits working at high frequencies, the PR55 is particularly suitable for development departments and on-site inspections. For safety reasons it should only be used with isolated cables.
Industrial spectroradiometer - Glen Spectra has introduced the NEW PR-651 Industrial SpectraScan from Photo Research Inc., a ruggedized, version of the world famous PR-650. It is designed to take non-contact spectral measurements in harsh, dusty, humid and/or moist manufacturing environments. It is also equally at home as part of a continuous operation on-line system.
Technical conference ties up loose ends of wireless - Some excellent wireless sensor solutions are being implemented in today's industrial environments, many of which are made up of various wireless principles, thus creating vendor-specific results in industrial settings around the world. That's why the Wireless Industrial Networking Alliance (WINA), an unbias group that recommends wireless techology standards and promotes their use in factories, is a sponsor of the Wireless Industrial Communications Technical Conference, hosted by ISA-The Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society on 7/8 October 2003, at Sheraton Gateway Hotel Atlanta Airport, Atlanta, GA (USA).
Clinical manufacturing system implemented at three R&D facilities - Honeywell Industry Solutions has implemented POMS CMS enterprise production management at GlaxoSmithKline's (FTSE: GSK) research and development facilities in Tonbridge and Stevenage in England, and at the company's product development facility at Upper Providence, Pennsylvania.

Appointment in Britain - Peak Test Services has signed an agreement with Virginia Panel Corporation (VPC) to become their exclusive UK sales and marketing representative. VPC is a leading supplier of mass interconnection interfaces, which are typically used in functional test systems to provide rapid, cost-effective and efficient connection of test fixtures to automatic test systems.
Manifolds and fittings - Parker's high integrity instrumentation manifolds valves and tube fittings have been selected for Segas' liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in the port of Damietta, Egypt. The ability to supply a comprehensive package was an important factor in the selection process for M W Kellogg, part of the project's joint-venture engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) consortium of Halliburton KBR, JGC, and Tecnicas Reunidas. The instrumentation components will be used to build the measurement and control systems on the largest single-train LNG liquefaction plant in the world, which will have a capacity approaching 5 mtpa (million tons/annum) when it is completed in late 2004. Operated by Segas (Spanish Egyptian Gas) - a joint venture of Spain's Union Fenosa and Italy's Eni - the facility will be used to export gas to Spanish power generators.

Demo vision CD available - Cognex, leading supplier of machine vision systems, has announced the availability of the VisionPro demo CD. The CD includes a VisionPro demonstration that helps customers understand how a flexible, graphical programming environment can minimise development time of advanced vision applications. In addition, the CD includes vision system hardware specifications and detailed descriptions of Cognex vision tools.

PC Adapter Acquires CAN Messages in Real Time - Contemporary Controls has extended its family of CAN products with a PC Card Adapter that adds a physical layer option for CANopen networks. The ICPCM-CO enables OEMs to instantly connect all CAN networks to a notebook computer.

New management structure to target growth - GE Fanuc Automation has promoted Pascal Boillat to president with responsibility for CNC Business, Europe, and John Pritchard to president for PLC Solutions Business, Europe. The reorganisation allows the two divisions to focus more closely on their core competences within their relevant business sectors in order to target growth opportunities in product sales and to gain market share.
Widely used factory floor and execution systems software group acquired - Tecnomatix Technologies, "the driving force in Manufacturing Process Management (MPM)", today announced that it has agreed to acquire substantially all the assets of USDATA Corporation, a leading developer of supervisory-level control (SCADA) and manufacturing execution systems (MES). The acquisition is in line with Tecnomatix' vision for a complete MPM solution spanning the entire manufacturing process lifecycle.