The Traveler Returns

Got an email from Walt this morning. "Got home at 7:00 last night. Still dead. Going back to bed now. See you in the morning." So you can expect some good and tasty Walt-isms starting tomorrow. Meanwhile, the best I can do is a sneak preview of the November issue, which will be showing up online by the end of the week. Our cover story, "Service Plant Soon?" discusses the current EAM landscape. Is there any "there" there? What is EAM really and what are its benefits? We talked to drug maker ImClone, Enbridge, the operator of the largest crude oil and liquids pipeline in the world, and two power generators, Stattnet of Norway and Wisconsin Public Service about how they are using EAM to improve productivity, quality and compliance, optimize their production and ultimately improve their bottom lines. Greg McMillan and Mark Sowell show us how virtual design can reduce the hassles of controling pH values in "Virtual Control of Real pH," and ISA-95 expert Bianca Scholten explains how this standard can reduce many failures to communicate in "Talk to Me, Baby." Then there are the usual suspects providing valuable insights and information in their  columns. Bela Liptak and his panel of experts take on solar generators and control valve boosters. John Rezabek explains how to compute the right output speeds for control loops, the Control Talk guys take on the challenges of retirement, Dan Hebert speculates on the future of open control programming, Keith Larson channels Kermit the Frog and Jim Montague discovers the joys of YouTube for demonstrating process control applications. Exclusively on the web, we're offering an investigation of counterfeit valves and other parts, a case study about the retrofit of an outdated DCS on a BP oil platform in the North Sea and Andrew Bond's Euro-centric look at process automation news.    Gonna be another good issue. Don't miss it