Most Recent

• Basics of PID in 25 points

  By Gregory K. McMillan and P. Hunter Vegas

   Measure each flow, inventory (e.g., level or weight and pressure), every process variable for safe operation and environmental protection, and each indicator of process efficiency and capacity (e.g., composition, quality, pH, and temperature) with sufficient accuracy (particularly least…

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• Best practices for PID

  By Gregory K. McMillan and P. Hunter Vegas

  Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) control is used in more than 99% of the loops for chemical, pharmaceutical, and food and beverage production. PID has proven to be capable of the best load rejection by using the best tuning and the extensive flexibility of functionality offered by the PID…

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• A little help for those who share my aversion to “digitalization”

  By Paul Studebaker

  My job is slinging words, and while there are others who do it better, I take it seriously and consider my ability one of my few points of pride. I can explain most complex topics clearly, logically and succinctly, and in a way that has even won national awards. So, you can imagine my…

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• Raising professional performance

  Greg: I have greatly appreciated the opportunity to be part of the committee to review and improve the Automation Competency Model created by the Automation Federation (AF) for the U.S. Department of Labor (USDOL). The industry review committee is led by Steve Huffman, vice president of marketing…

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• Product roundup: I/O and terminal blocks

  Four-port serial I/O in chassisGRV-CSERI-4 groov serial I/O module plugs into a groov Edge Programmable Industrial Controller (EPIC) chassis alongside the new groov EPIC and discrete and analog I/O modules; enables EPIC to add communication with RS-232 and RS-485 serial devices; and provides the…

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• Use contractions to show you care about reaching your audience

  By Jim Montague

  Process control engineers and other technical professionals don't talk like robots, so why do they write like robots?I ask this question because I've spent way more time than I expected over the past 20 years correcting submitted texts to add contractions. You know, turning "is not" into "isn't,"…

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