This isn’t really “ABB Day at SoundOFF!” It just seems like it.

From Ken Graber’s press release:

Metro Milwaukee Special Olympics soccer teams to compete at Summer Games in June

(More than 140 athletes and 70 volunteers from ABB’s New Berlin Campus turn out in support of event)

WAUKESHA, WI, May 13 2007 . . . Eight (8) teams from the Special Olympics Soccer competition that ABB New Berlin sponsors annually now advance to the State Summer Games, June 5–7, at University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point. The District Competition in New Berlin/Waukesha was held on May 10, 2008, with more than 70 volunteers from the ABB New Berlin campus cheering on athletes, helping with game details, breakfast and lunch.

“I can assure you ABB will continue to support this event and these athletes, said Rick Hepperla, Senior Vice President and Regional Division Manager, Automation Products, North America, for ABB. “Most of our 425 employees share these metro Milwaukee communities with you athletes – so this is a natural opportunity for us all to give a little something back.” Hepperla, along with Aaron Aleithe, general manager of ABB Low Voltage Drives, underwrite the District Competition, to support field rental, food and spirit-ware for the athletes.

“This is the 13th Annual District Competition ABB New Berlin has been the sole sponsor of this event — and we know the Special Olympics organization values the strong bond we’ve built up together through these years,” Hepperla noted.

More than 140 Athletes Vie for State

Fourteen teams, comprised of more than 140 athletes, were on hand to compete for a place in the Summer Games at Stevens Point. The competition draws athletes from greater-Milwaukee area, and participants play five-to-a-side against other teams, with first-, second- and third-place finishers able to qualify for a place in the Wisconsin State Summer Games. The following teams now advance to State:

– North Suburban Cougars

– Watertown Kickers

– Tosa Flames

– Tosa Torches

– ODTC Bananas

– TM Devil Rays

– TM Stingrays

– West Bend Kickers

The competition is held annually at Waukesha West High School (3301 Saylesville Rd, Waukesha), in early-to-mid May, in order for advancing teams to ready for state competition. Nearly 1,800 athletes compete in soccer, power lifting, track and field and swimming at the state games, and law enforcement personnel from across the state bring the flame of hope to opening ceremonies in The Law Enforcement Torch Run® Final Leg, noted Chris Reiter, regional director of sports for Special Olympics.

Introduced at ABB Automation World in Houston, and now released… here’s the press release, verbatim:

ABB releases cpmPlus Smart Client for System 800xA

Provides secure, real-time access to automation systems via any internet browser

Baden, Switzerland, May 12, 2008 – ABB announced that it has released its Industrial^IT cpmPlus Smart Client, part of its Collaborative Production Management suite. This thin client helps process customers securely access their automation systems via an internet browser for real-time visibility into the process from any location as long as a connection to the plant exists (i.e. VPN) ABB introduced cpmPlus Smart Client at its ABB Automation World 2008 Conference and Exhibition customer event earlier this month in Houston, Texas.

Smart Client seamlessly retrieves data from ABB’s System 800xA and connected third-party systems and then displays this information in the user desired format to facilitate the informed decisions and swift, appropriate actions that improve performance. In addition to browser-based graphical displays, Smart Client also provides trending and Statistical Process Control, alarm and event reporting, and a Microsoft Excel interface.

Smart Client provides intelligent data access and viewing functions in a user-friendly, browser-based display to assist all levels of personnel when they need a real-time window into their operations when they are not on-site. These displays can be launched from any standard Internet browser, inside or outside of the manufacturing facility. Smart Client incorporates the same system-wide authorization settings as System 800xA, ensuring data security and integrity.

“Smart Client makes it easier for our customers to access and share the information they need, when and where they need it,” said Rauli Hantikainen, Vice-President for ABB’s Collaborative Production Management business. “In addition to this access, it harnesses the power of System 800xA’s single point change management and engineering in a browser-based thin client to give our customers the data integrity and trusted information they need to be able see their production situation and then act quickly to maintain their competitive edge.”

Smart Client offers customers several major productivity benefits:

Eliminates duplicate engineering by using the existing data definitions resident in System 800xA. Unlike other thin clients that require separate information definitions, all information (including upper and lower limits) is defined once in System 800xA and then made seamlessly available inside of Smart Client.

System 800xA’s single point of change management ensures that all updates are automatically reproduced throughout the system, so that any information viewed via Smart Client reflects the up-to-the minute system context, status and process conditions.

Information from multiple 800xA systems can be viewed and accessed via any internet browser, regardless of their physical or geographic location.

Increased tag counts do not incur additional costs, making cpmPlus Smart Client an affordable way to expand view only remote access capabilities for System 800xA.

Smart Client is a core component of cpmPlus (www.abb.com/cpm), ABB’s Collaborative Production Management suite of applications. cpmPlus provides process and production management, advanced optimization and connectivity solutions for the process industries.

This is from Dick Morley’s humor email list– and that’s about all the automation content, unless you see yourself or your projects here:

Murphy’s Lesser-Known Laws:

1. Sight travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

2. Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

3. Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don’t.

4. Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

5. The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there’s a 90% probability you’ll get it wrong.

6. If you lined up all the cars in the world end to end, someone would be stupid enough to try to pass them, five or six at a time, on a hill, in the fog.

7. The things that come to those who wait will be the scraggly junk left by those who got there first

8. The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in a dark room.

9. A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

10. When you go into court, you are putting yourself into the hands of 12 people who weren’t smart enough to get out of jury duty.

From the press release:

ASCO Numatics, the world’s leading manufacturer of flow control and pneumatics solutions, today announced a new program that will award two $5,000 scholarships to U.S. engineering students who are pursuing careers in industrial automation-related disciplines. Additionally, ASCO Numatics will make $1,000 grants to the engineering departments of the colleges in which the winners are enrolled.

“Fluid control and fluid power technology will play a vital role in helping companies meet the dynamic business conditions of tomorrow’s global markets. This work will require a new generation of engineering leaders with the skills and expertise to create advanced automation processes. We have implemented the scholarship program to recognize and assist students who show great potential and capability to solve tomorrow’s industrial processing challenges,” said Bob Kemple, executive vice president, sales and marketing ASCO Numatics - Americas.   The scholarships are merit-based and will be awarded on the candidate’s potential for leadership and for making a significant contribution to the engineering, instrumentation, systems, electrical, mechanical, and automation professions, particularly as they relate to the application of fluid control and fluid power technology. A panel of ASCO Numatics and independent judges will select the finalists.

Applicants must be enrolled full-time in an undergraduate or graduate program in an instrumentation, systems, electrical, mechanical, or automation discipline at an accredited U.S. educational institution for the 2008/2009 academic year. At the time of application, they must have completed at least their sophomore year in a bachelor’s degree program, have at least a 3.2 GPA on a 4.0 scale, and be a U.S. citizen or legal U.S. resident. Complete application details and forms are available at www.asconumatics.com/scholarship.   ASCO Numatics will present the scholarship awards at the ISA Expo on October 14, 2008 at the Reliant Center in Houston. The ASCO Numatics award presentation will be part of the annual ISA Young Automation Professionals Festival (YAPFEST) that ISA hosts for automation professionals between ages 18 and 30.   ASCO Numatics, formed by the recent merger of ASCO and Numatics, is a business unit of Emerson Industrial Automation.

This is what happens when you don’t check your languages… My predecessor in this chair, Paul Studebaker, now editor of Plant Services magazine, called it “the unfortunate acronym of the week.” I think he’s on to something.

 EuroBLECH 2008:Innovative solutions for sheet metal working

I guess “blech” means something different in one or the other European languages than it does in English.

There are hosts of examples of what happens when you don’t check, most of which are apparently urban legends, like the original meaning of the characters chosen for Coca-Cola in Chinese, which supposedly meant “Bite the wax tadpole,” and similar.

Some, however are quite real. The Chrysler Corporation put the accent on the final “e” in the name of the Plymouth Volare, causing it to be the “maybe it will fly” car. I know about that, ’cause I owned one.

As businesses become globalized, it is the responsibility of communicators from both vendors and pr agencies and media to watch out for stuff like this, and prevent potential embarassment…

As we did last year, Control magazine and ControlGlobal.com have teamed with the ISA100 Wireless Standard Committee to produce a major user survey on wireless.

The questions were developed in cooperation with the ISA100 Marketing Working Group and the ISA100 User Working Group, and were produced by a group of committee members including David Kaufman from Honeywell, Paul Sereiko from Airsprite Technologies, Jose Gutierrez from Emerson, Dick Caro, the User WG co-chair, and others, under the editorship of Larry Pereira, the Marketing WG co-chair. Larry and I want to publicly thank all the people who worked on this survey.

If you have a website, please feature this survey…we want the most number of responses possible. Last year, we obtained 499 user responses to the survey, and it was invaluable in directing the ISA100 standard effort. We hope to have even more this year.

All the members of the ISA100 committee will have access to the raw data from the survey, and the survey will be reported in the August 2008 issue of Control.

Click Here to take the Control/ISA100 survey!

From the press release:

PAS Introduces Operator Alert – An Essential Supplement to an Alarm System   Operator Alert provides an easy-to-use web interface for creating & editing alerts for managing process operations     Houston, TX – May 6, 2008 – PAS, a leading global supplier of software products and engineering consulting services for the process industries, today announced the release of Operator Alert, a new addition to its already successful critical condition management products.   Operator Alert provides the ability for plant operators to easily define alerts and reminders to notify them of plant conditions and help improve their effectiveness.  Alerts can be based on process conditions or timers. In addition, an intuitive interface allows operators to quickly and effectively configure new alerts.  Operator Alert has both Web and Windows interfaces and alerts can be configured to notify individuals or groups of operators.    Working in conjunction with AMO-Rt, Operator Alert provides a full range of tools to effectively manage a plant’s alarm system. AMO-Rt is the most comprehensive real-time alarm and event management suite available and – in addition to the new Operator Alert functionality –includes alarm & event data collection and analysis, performance metrics manager, documentation and rationalization, state-based alarm handling, flood suppression, alarm shelving, as well as audit & enforce to keep alarm systems performing optimally.    “We are excited about the release of Operator Alert as this provides significant value to process industry operators in their quest for enhanced Operational Effectiveness” says Eddie Habibi, Founder and CEO of PAS.  “Operator Alert is an effective enhancement to the most comprehensive alarm management product on the market.”  

From Tim Donaldson’s press release:

ICONICS is pleased to announce a new Partnership agreement with Kepware has been signed  that will result in the first Complete OPC-UA solution.  The complete Press Release is below and attached.  Any questions please  let me  know.   ICONICS and Kepware Announce OPC-UA Partnership Introducing First End to End, OPC-UA-Integrated Solution FOXBOROUGH, MA — May 6, 2008 — Today, ICONICS, an award-winning Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and provider of Web-enabled, OPC-based, HMI/SCADA Visualization and Manufacturing Intelligence software for Microsoft Windows® operating systems, announced an agreement with Kepware Technologies, a leader in OPC device communications for automation.   ICONICS and Kepware have signed a partnership agreement to create the world’s first total end-to-end OPC-UA solution. The “ICONICS OPC-UA KEPServer” integrates HMI/SCADA and visualization with a rich library of device connectivity from Kepware. This OPC-UA, 64-bit solution handles several different I/O devices and is certified for Microsoft Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. The solution is truly OPC–UA–To-The-Core™ and uses Web Services technology, making it simple to integrate plant floor visualization with Manufacturing Intelligence and Enterprise solutions.   “ICONICS and Kepware have been working together for more than 10 years and have recently signed a partnership agreement to provide the first end-to-end OPC-UA solution,” said Russ Agrusa, President and CEO of ICONICS. “Both our companies were instrumental in helping create the OPC-UA standard and we are excited to be delivering products based on OPC-UA.”   “We see ICONICS as a leader in OPC technology” said Roy Kok, VP of Marketing and Sales for Kepware Technologies. “ICONICS is an early adaptor of OPC-UA and we are happy to have them as a partner, proving that OPC-UA technology is now ready. ICONICS is the first HMI/SCADA partner to deliver KEPServerEX with OPC-UA.”

“ICONICS and Kepware are both leading developers of OPC Unified Architecture solutions,” said Tom Burke, President of the OPC Foundation. “Both companies are pioneers in bringing OPC-UA from the theoretical into the physical and practical. This partnership agreement now makes OPC-UA a reality.”   According to Craig Resnick, Research Director, ARC Advisory Group, “OPC-UA is intended to expand the framework for moving information between applications in the enterprise space by taking the existing OPC specifications and integrating them all together, leveraging Web Services as the key technology enabler in the new architecture for deploying applications such as asset management and true resource modeling that can utilize the OPC-UA specifications to move data and information.  This is why it is critical to manufacturers that any OPC-UA solution being implemented is sourced from partners who have extensive experience in deploying existing OPC solutions, which is certainly the case for both ICONICS and Kepware.”   ICONICS solutions are well known in the industrial automation software marketplace and are used in a wide variety of applications worldwide. ICONICS’ GENESIS64, GENESIS32 and BizViz products are recognized for their visualization capabilities and seamless integration with all Microsoft operating systems and applications, bridging information from “the shop floor to the top floor.”   ICONICS has provided award-winning industrial automation and Manufacturing Intelligence software for over 21 years, successfully deploying more than 225,000 solutions worldwide.

This just popped up in my emailbox this morning. The trade association and lobbying group, AeA, (www.aeanet.org) is offering seminar/workshops this week and next in Chicago (May 8), Boston (May 9) and in Silicon Valley (May 13). Experts in environmental law and from U.K. government agencies will discuss ramifications of RoHS, WEEE and similar environmental requirements in other countries. If your company is exporting to the EU, China or Korea, it might be worth a look-see.  The complete program is described at www.aeanet.org/environment2008.

In yet another announcement that continues to bolster the new WirelessHART specification’s market position– and continues to underscore its reality—MACTek has released two WirelessHART products with availability in third quarter 2008.

Why this is especially interesting is that MACTek makes no field instruments. They are among the first of the class of networking companies (Airsprite Technologies was the absolute first) to jump onto the HART retrofit market with WirelessHART adaptor products.

From the release:

MACTek Announces NEW Wireless Adapter Solutions

Cost-effective wireless technology solutions expand  the options to access HART® intelligent device information

April 22, 2008, Gates Mills, Ohio – MACTek Corporation, world leader in HART PC Modems, announces the preliminary sales release of two wireless adapter solutions that provide new options and alternatives for users to access information from their intelligent HART-enabled field devices.  MACTek’s 1-Port Wireless Adapter and the 2-Port Wireless Adapter are for use in WirelessHART™ networks and allow wireless access to HART data in existing HART-enabled field devices.  The Wireless Adapters will be available in Q3 2008.

The 1-Port Wireless Adapter (1-Port WA) enables existing wired HART field devices to communicate with host applications by means of WirelessHART technology.  The 1-Port WA is installed permanently by screwing it into an available spare port of HART field device. Other installation options are possible anywhere on the loop using a junction box or T-fitting.  A wired HART field device retrofitted with a 1-Port WA communicates its PV over the existing wire pair to the DCS and simultaneously communicates diagnostic and alarm data over the WirelessHART network to process management, asset management and engineering applications. The 1-Port WA has options for power scavenging (loop powered) or local power.  Power from the loop saves the long term cost of battery maintenance, replacement and disposal programs.  Local power can be used when available; for example when the field device is also direct powered.   The 1-Port WA will be ATEX / IS and XP certified for use in hazardous areas at the time of product release.

The 2-Port Wireless Adapter (2-Port WA) enables existing wired HART field devices to communicate with host applications by means of WirelessHART technology.  The 2-Port WA is installed permanently at any convenient location along the loop.  MACTek patent pending PassThrough™ technology makes installation easy and quick by passing two wires from the DCS and two wires from the HART field device into the cavity of the 2-Port WA and connecting the four wires to terminal blocks.  A wired HART field device retrofitted with a 2-Port WA communicates its PV over the existing wire to the DCS and simultaneously communicates device diagnostic and alarm data over the WirelessHART network to process management, asset management and engineering applications. The 2-Port WA has options for power scavenging (loop powered) or local power.  Power drawn from the two wire loop saves the long term cost of battery maintenance, replacement and disposal programs.  Local power can be used when available; for example when the field device is also direct powered.   The 2-Port WA will be ATEX / IS and XP certified for use in hazardous areas at the time of product release.

 “There will be high demand for WirelessHART Adapters especially during the introduction phase of WirelessHART as users retrofit the installed base of wired HART field devices” says Thomas Holmes, President of MACTek Corporation.  “The adaptor will retrofit wired HART field devices for 24/7 communication with control, engineering and asset management systems using Wireless HART. The adaptor also provides users with a low risk means of testing and evaluating Wireless HART in their plants.”

The Wireless Adaptor will have the same reliability, quality design and ease of use as our VIATOR Bluetooth, USB and RS232 HART PC modems.  Fully compliant with the HART communication specifications, our product family of wired and wireless solutions are easy to use – no configuration required – reliable and works with any HART-enabled device.  Visit www.mactekcorp.com for more information.