Sophisticated Automation Powers 9/11 Memorial Reflecting Pools at Ground Zero

The challenge: keeping 1.2 million gallons of water flowing and sparkling clear throughout all four seasons To commemorate those who died at the World Trade Center, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum at the World Trade Center Foundation was established to oversee construction of a memorial on the site of the twin towers. The foundation opened a worldwide design competition and received over 5,000 submissions from 63 nations. The winning design, “Reflecting Absence,”... Read More

Realizing the Potential of Automation Integration

Integrating control systems used to be an ongoing exercise in jury-rigging bridges between islands of automation. Different processes would have disparate controllers, often with disparate control logic packages leading to a near endless state of troubleshooting and massaging systems so they would get along. Every time you added a new system or piece of equipment you would have to revisit your integration efforts to make sure you hadn’t compromised something. “Even today,... Read More

Sinamics® S110 Servo Drive

“Plug and Play” has become a term almost synonymous with the consumer electronics market – and especially the computing market. These days, if a device requires more configuration than connecting it via USB and a brief walk through of a couple of point-and-click screens then most people will decide it’s not worth the effort.That same kind of convenience is gradually coming to the vastly more complex environment of the industrial automation world.HMI SCADA systems have... Read More

Eliminate 40% Costs when Applying Drive Architectures

The technology to network drives into a single, holistic plant or production line configuration has been available for several years, but adoption has not been universal, a fact that still surprises Greg Richards, an automation consultant with Siemens Energy and Automation. “I’ve gone out to plants and people don’t want to do it and I don’t understand why,” he says, pointing to cost savings in the 40 percent range when electing to go with this approach over traditional... Read More

The Secret to Improving Your Business Performance: Totally Integrated Automation

Factory automation systems have evolved from the islands of automation of the 1980s to integrated control systems of today. Only Totally Integrated Automation from Siemens takes integration to a new level with a suite of automation products that use core intelligence from the inside out to fit together seamlessly. While many automation companies provide products that control individual parts of the manufacturing process, and a few have stitched many such products into systems... Read More