This Week
How to Run Your Process Control Applications Far Out in the Field
Establishing Process Automation Projects in Developing Economies and Other Remote Locations Requires Better Preparation, Stronger Supply Chains, More Accessible Expertise, Simpler Controls and Added Training. Here's How Veteran Players Make It Happen
Top 10 Chemically Engineered Inventions
The 10 inventions considered to have made the biggest impact on society were:
Expanding Your Process Automation Plant Requires Bigger Data Too
Foremost Farms Doubles Production and Adds Data Acquisition and Historian Functions to Its SCADA/HMI System to Find Exceptions and Improve Operations
What Are the Benefits of Advanced Process Control?
How Good Is Good? McMillan and Weiner Talk with Lewis Gordon about APC benefit techniques such as Model Predictive Control
April's Out of Control Cartoon Caption Contest
Gather your wits and submit a caption in the comments section for April's Out of Control Cartoon contest. The winning caption will be featured on ControlGlobal.com as well as in future edition of the Control Global Update enewsletter. You also get the pure joy of knowing that you are funnier than everyone else who entered. And in the end, isn't that what is really important?
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- Can Ziegler-Nichols Equations Be Used to Tune Non-Interactive Controllers?
- Process Automation In Third World Countries Is Not as Underdeveloped as We Like to Think
- What Are the Benefits of Advanced Process Control?
- Expanding Your Process Automation Plant Requires Bigger Data Too
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Community
Phoenix Contact Goes off the Grid
To celebrate Earth Day, Phoenix Contact (www.phoenixcontact.com) will unveil its new combined cooling, heating and power (CCHP) system, and its president, Jack Nehlig, will ceremonially disconnect from the electric grid. The CCHP system is a natural gas, fixed microturbine system that will generate enough electricity to power the company’s Americas headquarters about 65% of the time. It will also heat and cool the facility independent of external sources.
read moreAdvanced Regulatory Control Perspective Tips
Advanced regulatory control seeks to incorporate knowledge of process dynamics, disturbances, constraints, and objectives to increase process efficiency and capacity. The PID power and flexibility enables an incredible spectrum of creative opportunities to achieve these goals. Here we look at techniques to preemptively deal with upsets and setpoint changes, protect against abnormal conditions, improve process linearity, compensate for dead time, eliminate limit cycles, reduce valve deadband, improve valve resolution and threshold sensitivity, extend valve rangeability, and optimize process operation. We also consider when to move up to model predictive control.
read moreA wake-up call to ignoring cyber threats – PG&E indicted on criminal charges
April 1st, a federal grand jury indicted PG&E on 12 counts of knowingly and willfully violating the federal Pipeline Safety Act leading to the San Bruno pipeline rupture. As San Bruno was a control system cyber incident, the cyber security implications include the following. It doesn’t need to be a malicious cyber incident to cause significant damage and now even to be a potential criminal event. A cyber threat to the utilities can have a direct impact on their customers’ facilities and their customers’ physical safety. Just like the Target hack, PG&E and others may be judged on what they SHOULD HAVE known.
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Where Does Innovation Come From?
It has been a busy summer. For the last couple of months I have had the pleasure of pretending to be a venture capitalist. Earlier this year I joined a local organization called the IT Entrepreneurs Network (ITEN) as a mentor. This is a local organization that exists to help startups in the local area move from the concept stage to securing funding for their business. I am in St. Louis, not silicon valley of the MIT corridor or the Pacific Northwest, and access to resources such as venture capitalists, advisors, and programming skills is not as easy as it is in those locations, hence the need for a networking forum for would-be innovators. One of the mentor roles is serving on a panel of mock angel investors. We meet with and critique the pitches from startups as they present their business plans to us as though we were potential investors. This has given me some new insight into the innovative process.
read moreIEC Safety Standards (IEC 61508) Help
Functional Safety standards continue to generate significant interest and in many cases questions in the automation industry. The Functional Safety standards are more commonly known as IEC 61508, IEC 61511, and ISA-84. The IEC has a web site to support questions on these documents.
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