Reduce Arc Flash Accidents Using Totally Integrated Automation

Several years ago Henry was the maintenance manager at a large manufacturing facility. He was married, had a very upbeat personality, a good position at the company, and was pleasant to be around. One day, Henry was trying to track down a low voltage problem and was conducting voltage measurements on a 4,160V to 480V dry type transformer on an upper level mezzanine. He took off the transformer cover, knelt down in front of it with a meter to test the 480V side and got the 4,160V... Read More

Ethernet networking: The values and the pitfalls

Industrial Ethernet has been the source of a great deal of discussion over the past few years. Proponents, and there are many, seem to believe it is the shop floor equivalent of a perfect world. Everything changes; you reduce — or even eliminate — cabling, you get more diagnostics, more control, it’s cheaper, it’s less proprietary. Ethernet also has its opponents. They claim Industrial Ethernet is too new to be trusted on the plant floor, or that it’s too expensive... Read More

ET200 Pro IWLAN

Industrial Ethernet, which is rapidly becoming the automation network standard has, dramatically reduced the amount of cabling required for industrial applications. Wireless technologies are already taking the next step by all but eliminating cables altogether, promising a boon to environments that regularly destroy cabling through excessive heat, airborne particulates or high levels of electromagnetic interference. The ET 200Pro IWLAN machine mount I/O system from Siemens Energy... Read More

Win AC MP

Siemens has unveiled the latest version of its embedded automation family, WinAC MP 2008 which enables users to implement control and visualization tasks on a single, compact, maintenance-free platform. “People have been predicting the death of traditional PLCs for a few years now, and I think they are getting a little ahead of reality. That said, WinAC MP certainly has its uses in automation and is capable of handling applications outside of the paradigm of a traditional PLC,”... Read More

SIMATIC Industrial PCs

The wait for multi-core processing on the shop floor is over. The industrial environment can be pretty hostile to computing equipment. Equipment has to be hardened and shielded against vibration, shock, heat and EMC before it can be expected to function consistently in the factory, meaning it often takes a little extra time for the latest computing technologies to filter down from the consumer and office markets to the shop floor. Siemens’ industry automation group has released... Read More

Busting the Silos Around Safety

“In business and government everyone exists in silos,” says Michael Taubitz. “Production, Safety, Administration, Quality, and all the others. They have their own industry groups, their own issues, etc. But when you are designing you have to do that as a well integrated whole. You have to bust the damned silos.”Taubitz, now retired, who spent 43 years at General Motors, most of it working as the company’s top safety standards executive, says that this is especially... Read More