Control System World

Rotork has expanded into new office, workshop and production storage facilities at its worldwide headquarters in Bath. The new building will home Rotork PLC, as well as the southern office for Rotork UK, which was set up in 2012 to rationalise all of Rotork’s home market electric, fluid power and manual valve actuation activities under a single banner. Rotork UK’s northern office, actuator and gearbox factory will be moving into larger new premises in Leeds early in 2014.

The new Bath offices also house Rotork’s systems sales department, reflecting the increased demand for Rotork’s digital control network solutions including the advanced wireless Pakscan system. Enlarged office and workshop space is also provided for Rotork Site Services, the company’s specialist retrofit, maintenance, repair and asset management organisation. Under the same roof, 872 square metres of new warehouse space has been created to give additional support to burgeoning production at the main electric actuator manufacturing plant, where IQ3, IQT and CVA actuators are built.

The new facilities have freed up space in Rotork’s original head office building, facilitating expansion of international sales, marketing, engineering, research & development and business development departments, positioning Rotork for continued growth in Bath for the foreseeable future.

In light of ever-increasing pressures to improve the efficiency, reliability, safety and quality of industrial processes, the International Society of Automation (ISA) today announces it will conduct an Industrial Automation and Control educational track at its upcoming 2013 ISA Automation Week Technology and Solutions Event.

“In today’s highly competitive business environment, companies are constantly looking for new and better ways to manufacture their products and become more proficient,” says Jon Peterson, Senior Vice President and co-founder of Seeq Corporation, and the Chair of the Industrial Automation and Control track. “Of course, in paraphrasing the familiar saying, ‘You can’t optimize what you can’t control.’ That’s where process control and industrial automation and control systems come in.”

The Industrial Automation and Control educational track is one of six educational tracks offered at ISA Automation Week 2013, the premier annual event for automation and control professionals worldwide, to be held 5-7 November 2013 in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Leading automation and control experts, authors, innovators and thought leaders across the globe will come together at the conference to demonstrate how to fully leverage the power and potential of automation solutions.

The Industrial Automation and Control track will demonstrate how the proper application of control theory and advanced process control systems can improve manufacturers’ key performance indicators, everything from reducing industrial accidents to boosting profitability. Other essential topics to be covered include quality control, utility optimization, model-based control, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), modern predictive control, loop tuning, simulation and situational awareness in process operations.

“Efficient and effective manufacturing processes are imperative for companies seeking profitability, and efficient, effective automation and control are at the core to modern manufacturing,” Peterson states. “Improving plant safety, through Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS) is another important part of the equation. We will have two full sessions that focus on safety.”

In all, nine sessions comprise the Industrial Automation & Control track, including

• Control Systems Operations

• Cyber-Security Panel Sessions

• Oscillations and Algorithms

• PLC/DCS Configuration, Migration, and Management

• Accident Prevention and Safety Instrumented Systems

• Model Based Control

• HMI Performance and Instrumentation

• Safety Instrumented Systems (SIS)

• Work Force Development and Mentoring

National Instruments has announced four new R Series boards (USB-7855R, USB-7856R, USB-7855R OEM and USB-7856R OEM) with USB connectivity, which help engineers add FPGA technology to any PC-based system using one of the most widely adopted buses on the market. These products, based on the LabVIEW RIO architecture, are a result of the company’s continued investment in the R Series product family.

The LabVIEW RIO architecture is an integral part of the NI graphical system design platform. A modern approach to designing, prototyping and deploying embedded monitoring and control systems, graphical system design combines the open NI LabVIEW graphical programming environment with commercial off-the-shelf hardware to dramatically simplify development, which results in higher-quality designs with the ability to incorporate custom design.

“Using these new USB R Series devices, engineers and scientists can create highly customizable measurement and control systems using standard PC technology,” said Jamie Smith, director of embedded systems marketing at National Instruments. “They are ideal for high-performance medical, life science and semiconductor machines.”

Key features:

• Xilinx Kintex-7 FPGA: Implement tasks like custom timing and triggering, synchronization, multirate sampling, high-speed control and onboard signal processing.

• Improved I/O: Take advantage of analog input and analog output rates of up to 1 MHz for closed-loop control tasks, as well as digital I/O (DIO) rates of up to 80 MHz.

• Selectable Logic Levels From 1.2 to 3.3 V: Adjust DIO levels to meet specific application requirements.

• Selectable Gain for Analog Input Ranges: Get more resolution at lower voltage ranges.

• OEM Options Available: Get the same power in a board-only form factor with the flexibility to create your own I/O interface.

Invensys, a leading supplier of state-of-the-art industrial software, systems and control equipment to the world’s major industries, has released a new, cloud-hosted Wonderware® Historian Online Edition that will enable customers to safely share more plant data with their workers while lowering their IT burden. Building on a base of more than 70,000 Wonderware Historian licenses, the company’s new Historian Online Edition offering can help reduce implementation time, provides universal access and delivers alternative pricing models for expanded industry use.

This innovative, Software as a Service offering uses a multi-tier Historian database architecture, storing data from one or more local plant-level Wonderware Historians onto a cloud-hosted, enterprise-wide instance. Data flows only one way—from the local historians to the online historian—and it is protected from cyber intrusion so it can safely be made available to more workers for better troubleshooting, reporting and analytics. The solution leverages Windows Azure cloud services from Microsoft Corp., so there is no software to install or set up, saving on valuable IT resources and reducing capital requirements.

“Our new Wonderware Historian Online Edition is a revolutionary way of accessing and using real-time data on demand,” said Rob McGreevy, vice president, information, asset and operations software for Invensys. “Providing a hosted historian simplifies set-up, installation and ongoing maintenance, and also improves usability for the end users by safely and securely making the information available wherever and whenever needed. Users can scale as their needs grow, without having to worry about infrastructure, hardware or software costs, upgrades or support.”

This service will be offered as a yearly subscription, based on the number of users accessing the data.  Reporting and analytics are delivered to the historian online edition through standard tools, including Invensys’ desktop reporting and analysis client, Wonderware Historian Client, along with its Wonderware SmartGlance® mobile reporting solution. System users can view the data via multiple devices, including desktop PCs, laptops, tablets and smart phones.

“Windows Azure is a scalable, flexible cloud platform, and Invensys’ introduction of its Wonderware Historian Online Edition on Windows Azure demonstrates the value industrial firms can gain from using a platform that removes the burden of requiring expensive IT infrastructure to bring new products quickly online,” said Dewey Forrester, senior director, business development and evangelism at Microsoft.

Kepware Technologies, a software development company focused on communications for automation, has recently released KEPServerEX® version 5.13. The updated communications platform expands Kepware's support of industry standards, and enables improved interoperability and communications across key industries.

KEPServerEX version 5.13 features client- or user-driven on-demand communications with new Device Demand Poll functionality. This added flexibility enables users to meet the client-driven polling requirements of their application. Also included in this release, the Allen-Bradley ControlLogix Unsolicited Driver for KEPServerEX is now compliant with Open DeviceNetwork Association (ODVA) standards, ensuring interoperability with other Ethernet/IP-based products.

"Interoperability issues are paramount with multi-vendor products, which is why our commitment to supporting industry standards is a top priority as we continue to advance our products," said Tony Paine, President and CEO of Kepware Technologies. "With version 5.13, we improved the performance of our Allen-Bradley ControlLogix Unsolicited Driver and achieved ODVA certification."

The enhancements made to KEPServerEX's EFM Suite considerably advance its communication capabilities for the upstream and midstream Oil & Gas Industry. The EFM Exporter now supports exporting collected archive data directly to any SQL database for custom applications and analysis. Furthermore, the Fisher ROC and ROC Plus Serial drivers now support User Programs in Emerson's Fisher ROC and FloBossTM devices, which enables automatic tag generation and data access to User Defined Points.

"As regulations tighten and Oil & Gas networks span increasingly greater distances, the industry requires new and innovative approaches for collecting and communicating data," said Steve Sponseller, Product Manager of Oil & Gas Solutions at Kepware. "The value of data to the Oil & Gas Industry is growing exponentially. With version 5.13, we paid special attention to helping the industry leverage this information to make highly-informed business decisions."

The HI 6500 series are EtherNet/IP® enabled weight processors with a Rockwell Add-On-Profile (AOP). They have a big, bright multi-channel display and deliver fast, high-resolution weight readings. They also feature alternative communication options. Weight processors are used as front ends to control systems or standalone for all types of general weighing applications. Operating blind or with a display, they measure, condition and communicate weight without any need to control.

The HI 6500 was designed to provide the features you ask for most in a weight processor:

• Easy to read, mount, set-up, calibrate and maintain.

• Multi-channel display of up to four weight processors simultaneously

• Communicates over EtherNet/IP, Analog 4-20 mA (HI 6510 only), Modbus TCP and - RTU, Serial (232/485), Ethernet-UDP and TCP/IP

• Consumes 5 watts nominal and 7 watts maximum (when powering two IT junction boxes and 8 load cells)

• Operates in weight or piece count mode

• Backs up configuration to USB (auto)

• A Rockwell Add on Profile (AOP) makes setting up the HI 6500 series in RSLogix simple and easy

• Of course the HI 6500 series also has the Hardy Process Toolbox, including C2® electronic calibration, INTEGRATED TECHNICIAN® diagnostics, and WAVERSAVER® vibration immunity.

Product Website

Launched in July 2013, Advantech claims that the WebOP-3000T series is the first Advantech RISC open platform to be given UL508 safety certification. UL508 gives customers the reassurance that these models, in the Industrial Equipment Class, have passed many stringent safety tests including: being fire-retardant, remaining undamaged by high temperatures and aren’t affected by over-voltage and under-voltage conditions, plus many more.

Ideal for use in machine manufacturing industries such as semi-conductor manufacture these newly designed models, with flat panel IP66 certified aluminum edging, include the latest Texas Instruments Cortex-A8 processor which is not only faster but also consumes the minimum amount of power and also support for CANopen, Modbus and Ethernet protocols to ensure that they’ll connect to your existing network.

Unique in their class, the new WebOP 3000 series have dual Level 4 Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) protection and fully meet IEC-61000 requirements. This level of protection makes them ideal for work in semi-conductor factories where ESD is a major concern.

To protect the models from sudden spikes in the electricity supply, the WebOP-3000T series is equipped with power and terminal I/O port isolation protection so that in the event of power surges the panel’s components will not be affected. This level of protection not only prevents immediate damage to the devices but also increases the life of the products.

In the event of power failure to the WebOPs, they are protected against immediate data loss by the inclusion of 128KB FRAM (Ferroelectric RAM) which doesn’t require a battery to operate. Storage memory is 512MB SLC flash memory, which provides faster access times and 100,000 read-write cycles making it ideal for heavy use industrial applications thatalso require lower power consumption.

Honeywell was named the Best Control Systems Provider at the 2013 Asian Manufacturing Awards (AMA) held in Singapore. Honeywell’s Experion® Process Knowledge System (PKS) emerged the winner against other major distributed control systems nominated for the award. Judges made the award based on Honeywell’s solution innovation, customer impact, client engagement and regional market penetration.

“It is gratifying that the industry recognizes the benefits which Honeywell brings to its customers,” said Leong Hon Mun, sales director Southeast Asia, Honeywell Process Solutions. “The award is a real testament to Honeywell’s Experion® PKS consistent performance in improving customers’ plant performance and demonstrates commitment to the client base to ensure satisfaction throughout the marketing, sales, delivery and post-implementation lifecycle.”

The winners of the various categories of the AMA were chosen by an independent panel of judges from Asia, Africa, Australia, Europe, and North America. The results also were audited by Singapore auditors, Summit Planners Audit, to further guarantee a fair and transparent voting process and to ensure a high level of credibility for the awards.