Almost every industrial process is capable of adopting aspects of the fourth industrial revolution, the interconnection and digitisation of products, business models and value chains, otherwise known as Industry 4.0. This article looks at the advantages of this evolving concept and how it can be implemented in process control scenarios. As more manufacturers and businesses […]
When many Modbus devices need to be monitored and controlled, engineers usually have to spend much time planning the topology of these devices and segmenting them into different subgroups. Moreover, they are also weighed down by the mundane task of keying in hundreds of Modbus slave IDs to set up each Modbus gateway’s slave ID […]
Companies which pack goods, machine builders, and automation suppliers are all working towards one goal: the best way to move vulnerable goods from producer to consumer. To extend the shelf life and to protect products is the main essence of packaging. We all want products to arrive at the consumer in a perfect state. Form, […]
Safety instrumented systems (SISs) all require software logic testing and periodic re-validation. Manual testing can be laborious, time-consuming and error prone, and may not always be effective in finding certain classes of defect. Automated testing and revalidation offers a possibility to perform these types of tests more efficiently. Automated software testing has long been accepted […]
Robotic technology is quietly transforming the world of agriculture. This article describes how this market could grow to become a $45-billion industry by 2028. It will also demonstrate how diverse this emerging industry is in terms of forms, functions and fortunes. Will tractors evolve towards full unmanned autonomy? Tractor guidance and autosteer are well-established technologies. […]
Digitalisation has left its mark on the various industries, and the digital age has long been a reality in paper production. German paper company, Kabel Premium Pulp & Paper, use an RFID-based identification system to keep track of rolls upon rolls of high-quality paper around the clock. To maintain an overview of the multi-step production […]
There are few processes whose efficiency can be doubled through optimisation, but cooling systems are one of them. The coefficients of performance of unoptimised cooling systems are between 2,5 and 3,5 – meaning that one unit of energy can remove 2,5 to 3,5 units of energy from a process. Optimisation can double this coefficient to […]
New investments in the free flow of data between systems in South Africa will enable manufacturers to achieve new levels of efficiency and gain a competitive advantage. System integration budgets in South Africa are predicted to grow to R10,5-billion in 2021, up from R9,4-billion in 2016. Integrating inventory and customer demand information increases operational efficiency […]
This article presents a solution to the challenge of developing a new test bench design to test power meters with the flexibility to interoperate with automation devices and robotics arms through industrial protocols and adaptability to various product lines. Sagemcom Technology, an NI Alliance Partner located in Tunisia, was awarded a project to increase production […]
As information technology and automation technology continue to converge, cloud-based communication services are increasingly used in industrial control projects. As a result, PC-based control technology is gaining in importance as well. Automation software such as TwinCAT supports relevant communication standards for this purpose, such as OPC UA, MQTT and AMQP, simplifying the implementation of cloud-based […]
