Issue Archive

DCS Disasters
This Month We Join an End User Who’d Like Her Off-Hours to Be Less Subject to Distress Messages from Her Place of Employment. Dang! Cletus Been in My DCS!

Diagnostic Motor Problems
Keep Your Motors Humming. Diagnostics Can tell You When a Motor Is Having Problems, but You May Still Need to Keep Your Meters and Meggers Available

Adventures in Fieldbus
Control’s Monthly Resource Guide. This Month We Cover Fieldbus Technology

Improved Fieldbus Operations with Advanced Diagnostics
Eastman Needed Intrinsically Safe Fieldbus with Maximum Segment Capacity in a Harsh, Hazardous Environment. FISCO and Advanced Diagnostics Was the Way to Go

Flexibility, Powerful Performance from Magnetrol Ultrasonic
Magnetrol’s new Echotel Model 355 Transmitter Can Handle Applications That Were Unthinkable Just a Few Years Ago

System Integrators Strike Back
Product-Based Vendors Sometimes Don’t Meet Customer Needs because They Are Aiming for the Broad Market

Load Cell Junction Box Smartens Up
A Digital Junction Box Should Do Much More Than Just Sum and Trim

Multivariable Control of Distillation
Advanced Regulatory Controls May Be the Way to Overcome the Limitations of Model Predictive Control of Multivariable Processes

Our Online Libraries
Online Libraries Offer You the Same, If Not More, as Traditional Libraries

PC–Based Controls Help Freeze Escalating Energy Costs
Freezing Energy Costs. The World’s Largest Producer of Frozen French Fries Uses PC-Based Controls to Freeze Escalating Energy Costs

On the Level
Level Measurement Is Ancient Technology, Updated Now to Meet Today’s Demands.

Practical Process Safety
Take Your Medicine. A How-To Prescription for Practical Process Safety, Using Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment, Corporate Risk Policy, Consistent Implementation, Thorough Training and Continuous Revaluation—with Help from Harmonizing Standards and New Technical Tools

MES: When Preparation Meets Opportunity
An Innovative Implementation of MES Is How Bristol-Myers Squibb Ensured That Activities Performed at FAT Became Useful in Meeting Regulatory Requirements

Process Safety Standards and Rules
All on You - Process safety Standards and Rules Still Lack Specifics, but Some Tools Are Gaining Ground to Help Users Assess Risk and Implement Safety Solutions

Readers' Reactions
Our Readers Talk Nuclear Power, Question Our Fairness to Lawyers and Check into Hotel Automation

Save the WBF
If You Care About 21st-Century Manufacturing, Go to the Website and Join WBF. We Need the “How” as Much or More Than We Need the “Why”

Sensible Sensor Speed–Part 1
Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner Talk Sensor Speeds

"Tomorrow Is Not Cancelled"
Automation Companies Want to Emerge from This Downturn in a Stronger Position than Before

Is Wireless Process Control Ready for Prime Time?
Wireless Can Stand Up to the Demands in All but the Applications That Require the Fastest Scan Times

Vortex Flowmeters; Galvanic Thermowell Corrosion
Needed Answers for Vortex Flowmeters Questions. Also, Is There Any issue of Galvanic Corrosion Related to Thermowells and Flanges Made of 316SS?

Dueling Wireless
As ISA100.11a passes, the end-user jury is still out on which standard will come out on top.

Variable&#8211Capacitance Sensing Winner for Pressure Transmitters
Electronic pressure-sensing devices that employed variable-capacitance sensing technology continue to dominate process applications.

Byres Research and exida Merge
World’s first company offering functional safety and security certification and consultation

ABB relocates NA HQ to North Carolina
ABB transfers various executive and administrative functions to its new home over the next several years.

Preactor adds scheduling to Wonderware Operations
Preactor International has received certification from Wonderware under which it will provide the Finite Capacity Scheduling module for the Wonderware Operations system ― Factelligence ― to you and me.

Rival fieldbuses prepare for a wireless future
Rival fieldbus organizations the Fieldbus Foundation (FF) and Profibus & ProfiNet International (PI) are taking steps to ensure that they still have a role in any future Ethernet- and wireless-dominated world.

OPC shows signs of fragmentation
OPC has been one of the great success stories of the automation industry over the past 15 years, demonstrating that vendors and users can come together and reach agreement on issues of mutual benefit.

Roxar to add to Emerson’s upstream capabilities
If, as Warren Buffett observed, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you find who’s been swimming without a bathing suit,” it’s also true that you find out who’s got their drawers firmly pulled up round their expanding waistlines.

“No plans to close or downgrade Foxboro plants” — IPS
IPS has moved to scotch rumors prompted by last year’s headquarters move to Plano, Texas, that it is about to close its facilities in Foxboro, Mass., by stressing how it is poised to benefit from the upcoming global expansion of nuclear power.

... and merges with Byres Research, but not Security
Hardly was the ink dry on the exida-Wurldtech agreement when the arguably even more significant news reached us of the merger of exida with Byres Research.

ASM Consortium puts HMI research in public domain
In a move that can only enhance its aspirations to be considered an independent research body, the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium is to make a selection of its research available for purchase.

exida partners with Wurldtech ...
Canadian cyber security specialist Wurldtech and leading safety consultancy exida have entered into a strategic partnership under which they plan to integrate Wurldtech’s Achilles cyber security certification program into exida’s safety service portfolio.

Ethernet everywhere as ABB takes a wide screen approach to integrating process, power and telecoms
Despite the pronounced hiccup in ABB’s fourth quarter, senior process automation vice president Nick Laming believes there are already signs that this will be a short, even perhaps just a six-month contraction.