Solvay Green River is developing a 20-year vision for the future of its process control system assets. Kevin Kelley learned the value of control system lifecycle management the hard way. Following three losses of control system power in 2012, the process control foreman at Solvay Chemical’s Green River soda ash production facility in southwestern Wyoming […]
Rockwell Automation Inc. has acquired Columbia, Ill.-based systems integrator Maverick Technologies, in an effort to expand domain knowledge and deliver control and information solutions to the chemical, food and beverage, and oil and gas industries. “Industrial control and information solutions are most effective when they result from close collaboration between a knowledgeable supplier and the […]
All too often, people claim their systems are air-gapped, and therefore have no cyber vulnerability. But Alternating Current (AC) power cords cross the ostensible “air gap”, and power supplies for laptops, servers, ICSs, etc. have rarely been addressed for cyber security vulnerabilities. Alex McEachern from Power Standards Laboratory will provide a hands-on demonstration of two […]
After experiencing its worst year in 2015 since the great recession in 2008, the market for distributed control systems (DCS) is expected to drop again for 2016 before slowly bouncing back in the following years, according to a new study by ARC Advisory Group. The five-year market analysis, “DCS Global Market Research,” presents forecasts for […]
From Control Global Submitted by Joe Weiss on Thu, 09/15/2016 – 00:39 Protective relays are critical to the operation of the electric grid and the protection of large electric equipment in many industries including electric, nuclear, manufacturing, etc. Protective relays were originally electro-mechanical switches but have progressed to complex networked digital devices with enormous […]
“Reading, Pa.-area manufacturers are increasingly finding that prospective workers lack the skill set required to perform necessary job functions like basic math and technical tasks. And if this trend continues to grow, it could compromise the ability of those companies to stay viable. That’s the message Dan Fogarty, director of the Berks County Workforce Development […]
Protective relays are used to protect electric equipment such as motors and generators from electric faults. As an analogy, they are the circuit breakers in your house. Digital protective relays provide a higher level of reliability, more functionality, and the ability to provide direct integration into multiple devices including SCADA compared to the older mechanical […]
Job openings in May dropped from a record high and hiring cooled, a Labor Department report showed Tuesday, giving a more tempered assessment of the U.S. job market following the blowout payrolls numbers reported last week. From Bloomberg.com
Sometimes executives view automation as a black hole where money goes in, but no benefits ever come out. In the third in a four-part series on increasing the return on automation investments, we explore how to justify the investment to win over their support. The U.S. economy continues to grow despite challenges within certain industry […]
Spanish headhunter Samuel Pimentel just can’t find the candidates. After a frustrating search for specialist consultants for a client, he’s given up and is casting his net elsewhere. “We were looking for people for two months,” Pimentel, a partner at Ackermann Beaumont Group for Spain and Latin America, said in a telephone interview. “We managed […]