Quality inspection is critical in all manufacturing and packaging lines, especially in the food and beverage sector. Being able to catch a defective product before the products are shipped to customers in retail can bring significant savings in both time and money, preventing expensive product recalls, wasted production and potentially expensive legal costs. For perishable […]
Whether developing a consumer-facing kiosk or creating smart factory machinery, today’s automation designers and engineers are faced with a wide variety of hardware platforms to choose from. Different platforms are suited for varying ranges of roles, but it is crucial to understand where each family of devices plays best so the right selection can be […]
With its bidirectional communication between intelligent field devices and host systems, highway addressable remote transducer (HART) technology has become the global standard. The example of valves shows how important the HART data provided by field devices is for processes. Often, it is not only a question of how often the valve is operated, but also […]
Wherever automated manufacturing systems are used in industry, on-site operation and process visualisation is becoming ever more important. However, it is often necessary for the industrial PC to be located a relatively large distance from the display. This places increased demands on the hardware being used (Fig. 1). If it must be attached directly to […]
Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is increasingly found in food tracing as technology improves. Implementing RFID is not uncommon in the case of large containers containing raw products and in the mixing of bulk materials. It offers companies a number of ways to streamline and manage their capacities, focusing particularly on the issues of traceability […]
Well into the 21st century, the case for automating manufacturing has been made many times over. As robotics evolve to include robots designed to collaborate with humans rather than replacing them, so does the business rationale for automating production. According to the GE Global Innovation Barometer report issued earlier this year, business executives around the […]
Developments are underway to realise an advanced physical layer (APL) for Ethernet that can be used in process automation and instrumentation to connect field devices in remote and hazardous locations. “Ethernet to the field” is a vision driven by new technological developments such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0. These developments […]
Wireless instrumentation is a new concept for some, as it is still considered to have limited use in the industry. Yet, it is becoming more popular for monitoring of non-critical processes like tank levels in a tank farm and where the use of cables is expensive or a risk. With the current hype over the […]
A closer look at the opportunities, challenges and real-world examples of integrating the IoT into machine condition monitoring. The ultra-internet of things (IoT) has created a surge of new interest in machine condition monitoring solutions. The confluence of better and cheaper sensors, broader connectivity, more sophisticated analytics, less expensive storage and multi-cloud technology has opened […]
Condition monitoring with non-destructive vibration analysis is experiencing an accelerated development due to several factors. Industrial and marine installations are increasingly interconnected by industry standard TCP-/IP-based networks. Transmission of wireless data is becoming cheaper and much faster. Digital storage of large data volumes is no longer a costly hurdle, and engineers and technicians are used […]
