It is becoming a reality that technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are starting to change the traditional role of the control engineer. Suzanne Gill finds out more about the benefits it can offer engineers as well as the barriers to its adoption in the industrial environment.
Christian Nomine explores the changing requirements for both SCADA software and HMI systems across the manufacturing and processing sectors as the importance of collecting, storing and analysing data grows.
At a Festo press event, Tanja Maaß, managing director at Resolto Informatik, spoke about the benefits of bringing artificial intelligence directly to the machine. Suzanne Gill reports.
VEGA’s radar sensors with 80-GHz technology have been opening up new applications in level measurement for five years. The company has now developed a new instrument series based on 80 GHz specifically for simple applications. It represents a real alternative to ultrasonic technology.
A whitepaper from AVEVA explores why longer production hours do not always translate into higher productivity and capacity. It also offers advice on how to turn this around.
Yonatan Hyatt explains how manufacturers can benefit from deep learning in their machine vision applications.
A water injection pump has been brought back to life to maintain productivity after lying dormant for seven years.
Today’s process control valves offer an ever wider range of features and benefits for industries that require precise control over fluids, steam and other gases. With so many control valves to choose from it is important to establish the features that will deliver the most cost-effective design for a particular application, says Damien Moran.
Carl Nash examines the use case for 5G in a SCADA context – looking at how it can pave the way for increased performance and greater functionality in plant automation, with simpler implementation than traditional wireless networks.
There are thousands of industrial robots used in manufacturing, processing and packaging applications that take-up a great deal of floor space, simply because of outdated safety provisions. Moving to proximity-based safety can release space and improve production efficiency by allowing more freedom of movement on the shop floor, says Oliver Giertz.
To ensure it is able to keep pace with evolving food safety regulatory demands, Blakemans has employed an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system that enables integrated management of its production process — from quote to dispatch.
Today’s engineering projects are executed by a variety of stakeholders. But, can the process control system provide a reliable basis for effective and efficient collaboration? Manuel Keldenich believes they can.
Festo believes it can now offer the simplicity of pneumatics to the world of electric automation, with the electric Simplified Motion Series.
The FDT integration standard is about to transition into an information exchange platform which will enable cloud-based asset monitoring for field devices. This will reduce maintenance costs, improve asset reliability and provide useful information to personnel in a timely manner, says Suriya Selvaraj.
Built in 1997, the LNG Portovenere and LNG Lerici are ships designed for the transportation of liquid natural gas. Having reached the middle of their lifespan, the ships needed to undergo a total renovation project including a new distributed control system.
Find out more about CIP Security – an enhancement to EtherNet/IP technology to address cybersecurity – which allows devices to defend themselves using industry-standard, widely adopted technology.
The communication network is the single most important technological component of a machine or plant control system. Martin Rostan offers some food for thought about how the fieldbus choice is made.
A Research and Markets report – Internet of Things (IoT) Digital Twinning: Market Outlook for IoT enabled Physical to Virtual Mapping and Management 2017-2022 – stated that, by 2022, 85% of all IoT platforms will embrace digital twins. Suzanne Gill set out to see if industry is still on course to meet these figures.
Invertek Drives has automated the testing phase of its variable speed drive production line by incorporated two Universal UR5 cobots.
Michael Risse believes that there are three main trends driving more rapid insights from manufacturing big data.