Industrial Automation Blog

At one time or another we’ve all heard the old adage: Garbage in, Garbage out. While it’s an old saying, it’s a good one and it’s highly relevant to PID controller tuning and process optimization.

After all these years the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller remains the workhorse for process manufacturers. Still, after more than 50 years of use in industry many practitioners continue to view the tuning of PID controllers as a “black art”.

Finding yourself with more questions than answers about your automation project? Make or buy? Robots? Conveyors? Tooling? How much will this cost? Do we have the expertise in house to even try to tackle an automation project?

Supervisory control and data acquisition systems have some evolving to do to keep up with adoption in an IIoT era. But they still have a big market ahead.

Properly performed tests can provide a high level of assurance that a system will not have problems in startup and operation. Short of that, problems can prevail.

The SCADA system at Engie Brasil Energia's operations center monitors 32 plants, six of which are remotely operated.

How to use proof-of-concept testing to identify potential automation risks early and understand mitigation plans for each.

Elimination of physical barriers to production equipment is key to improving productivity. To get started, however, you must begin with a safety assessment.

An integrated approach to risk assessment and safety systems can help prevent costly plant accidents.

SCADA has a lot of moving parts and add-ons, which is why the implementation cost varies greatly from project to project. But no matter what industry or environment, everyone is always looking to cut unnecessary costs.

There are several factors that influence cost: the number of tags or points in your SCADA system, the number of clients that want to simultaneously view the system, amount of resiliency needed, amount of labor it takes to design and integrate, and ultimately which SCADA software you choose.

By understanding the biggest SCADA cost drivers, you should be able to get a better grasp on why SCADA costs what it does, and maybe even make some money-saving decisions up front.

Cost driver #1: Materials and selection of SCADA software

There are a variety of SCADA solution providers out there. Trihedral's VTScada, Schneider-Electric's Wonderware, GE's Cimplicity, and Tatsoft's FactoryStudio to name a few. Some SCADA solutions are geared toward large enterprise ...

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Want your manufacturing, packaging or shipping line to dazzle you like the ones in this video? Contact one of our CSIA Members who specialize in packaging or vision systems.

Real-time robotic control and motion planning can be a challenge for integrators and clients who want to keep the line moving and yet keep a safe process. Tony Veroeven comments on some new innovations in robotics motion control planning.