Add Remote Monitoring to Your Maintenance Toolkit
ApplicationCommunicationsData System MonitoringProduct

Add Remote Monitoring to Your Maintenance Toolkit

Remote monitoring options help maintenance personnel respond faster for the systems they manage and support, saving time and money. Bill Dehner, technical marketing engineer for AutomationDirect, wrote an article for the March-April 2020 issue of ISA InTech titled Add Remote Monitoring to Increase Maintenance Personnel Productivity. Here’s a summary, click on the link above for…
Mobile Industrial is the New Normal
Automation NotebookData System MonitoringIssue 42 - 2019Learning ResourcesMachine ControlNotebook IssueOperator InterfaceProduct

Mobile Industrial is the New Normal

Most plant floor workers already carry mobile devices, so using them to access, control and monitor equipment is a natural next step. The September 2018 issue of Control Design magazine featured a cover story spotlighting new and better ways for delivering a mobile industrial operator interface experience. Titled A Better Interface, the article presented input…
Layered Security Goes Beyond Hardware In IIoT Implementations
+Tech TopicsApplicationCommunicationsData and IIoTData System MonitoringeBookIIoT and DataLearning ResourcesOperator InterfaceProductWhy HMI

Layered Security Goes Beyond Hardware In IIoT Implementations

Industry is certainly starting to take note of the IIoT, which raises cybersecurity issues because it requires connecting field devices and other automation system components to the outside world, often through the internet. Connectivity capability is built into many automation components, typically via an Ethernet port, but can these connections be made secure?
Are You “Data-driven"? |Industry Survey
ApplicationCommunicationsCompany TopicsData and IIoTData System MonitoringeBookIIoT and DataLearning ResourcesNewsProductProgrammable Control

Are You “Data-driven"? |Industry Survey

With all the talk lately about Big Data and the IIoT, we got to thinking about how much of an impact these trends would have on our industry. Since the primary goal of these two trends is to improve bottom lines/profit margins through data collection, data analysis and remote access, we were curious as to…
A Quick View of SCADA in Oil and Gas
+Tech TopicsApplicationCommunicationsData System MonitoringEnergy/UtilitiesIndustryLearning ResourcesOnline OnlyOperator InterfaceProduct

A Quick View of SCADA in Oil and Gas

For quick and secure access to production and process data, a PC-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system is often the best solution. Whether upstream, midstream or downstream in the process, data can be collected by the SCADA system using a variety of built-in tools. Once collected from controllers and smart devices, the data…
Portable Water Treatment Platform Removes Phosphorus Economically
ApplicationApplication StoriesAutomation NotebookAutomationDirect SpotlightData System MonitoringEducation/DIYIndustryIssue 34 - 2016Learning ResourcesMotion ControlNotebook IssueOnline OnlyOperator InterfacePLCPLC eBookProductProgrammable ControlStudent SpotlightStudent SpotlightWater/Wastewater

Portable Water Treatment Platform Removes Phosphorus Economically

A trailer-mounted water treatment process controlled by a Productivity2000 PLC has recently been developed at the University of Idaho. Professor Greg Möller, in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, along with engineers from the College of Engineering have teamed up to build the platform, and to further research the economical removal of phosphorus from various…
Switching to Do-more Saves Time
ApplicationApplication StoriesAutomation NotebookData System MonitoringEnergy/UtilitiesIndustryIssue 27 – 2013Learning ResourcesNotebook IssuePLCProductProgrammable ControlUser Solutions

Switching to Do-more Saves Time

Almost 14 years ago, I converted the controls in my 80KW hydro electric plant, located in the mountains of western North Carolina, from custom micro-controller cards I developed while at Georgia Tech to the DirectLOGIC DL205 PLC with a D2-260 CPU. In 2013, it was time to make some upgrades to the plant by adding…
Students help Manufacturing Center See AND Do More
ApplicationApplication StoriesAutomation NotebookData System MonitoringEducation/DIYFacilitiesIndustryIssue 27 – 2013Learning ResourcesNotebook IssueOperator InterfacePLCProductProgrammable ControlStudent SpotlightTest and Measurement

Students help Manufacturing Center See AND Do More

When the mechatronics students at Catawba Valley Community College (CVCC) in Hickory, North Carolina, went looking for a suitable project to challenge their recently acquired PLC and HMI skills, they didn’t have to go far. The Problem The college’s Manufacturing Solutions Center (MSC) in nearby Conover needed a way to monitor the status of a…