Control Amplified

The classic economic definition of the total cost of ownership (TCO) is the purchase price of an asset plus its operating costs over the asset’s lifespan. While this may be relatively easy to calculate for hard goods like a piece of machinery, the cost factors for soft goods, such as SCADA software, are more complicated to ascertain due to their wide range of features and licensing models.

Control talked with Barry Baker, vice president of Trihedral Engineering Limited, to gain some insights from his more than 30 years of SCADA systems experience in many diverse industries.

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are becoming more prevalent as electrification takes hold of energy and transportation sectors. The manufacturing of these batteries requires a production and distribution process model that can keep up with the growing demand.

Control spoke with Kenny Marks, Lithium and Battery Business Development Manager at Emerson, to get a sense of the challenges that customers encounter and innovative automation solutions that can help increase speed to market and help ensure reliable project execution.

Mark Darby works extensively with gas refineries and chemical processing plants. He also serves on the advisory board at Texas Tech University.

Marcos Peluso served as director of development for fieldbus at Emerson. Peluso worked on many projects over the years, but his work on developing Foundation Fieldbus is the capstone to a stellar career.

Joe Weiss is managing partner of Applied Control Solutions Inc., and an ISA99 ICS cybersecurity pioneer and blogger.

You're probably aware of the important role that supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) software plays in managing automation systems used by water or power utilities, national broadcasters or scientists. You’re also likely aware of the role custom coding plays when configuring these applications for users. However, you may be less aware of the ongoing price of each line of code that, if not carefully managed, can reduce performance, reliability, and longevity of critical SCADA systems.

Control talked with Chris Little, media relations director for Trihedral Engineering Limited, to find out how systems integrators and in-house developers can create advanced SCADA solutions that aren’t limited by rapidly aging code.

Automation is becoming increasingly open and vendor-agnostic. Likewise, field devices that must be digitalized and interoperable for reporting, maintenance, analytics and decision-making are becoming more remote and automated.

Recently, Schneider Electric’s Marcel Rameil, global offer manager for Control Software for Foxboro DCS, and Thad Frost, business leader for Foxboro DCS, talked with Control about today’s best practices for all aspects of plant automation, and how autonomous plant operations can be achieved.

In this episode of Control Amplified, group publisher Keith Larson speaks to Gerry Abbey, manager of analysts, relations and insights at Rockwell Automation, about Rockwell's ninth annual State of Smart Manufacturing report.

Tom Reiter has more than 35 years of application and engineering expertise in the electronics and automation industry. He has been with Schneider Electric and Pro-face for more than 10 years as a sales and product application engineer focusing on digital factory and HMI solutions. His knowledge of programming, device connectivity, and customer solution development has been crafted throughout his experiences in the field and customer interactions. With a lifetime of experience, he can look at any situation and provide a unique, thoughtful, well-rounded solution. His inspiration comes from the excitement of seeing automation in practice and thrives on the challenge of exceeding customer needs.

Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a hydrocarbon gas consisting primarily of propane, butane, or a mixture of both. Because it produces lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional solid fuels, there's increasing demand for LPG across the world. In fact, some governments have implemented policies and initiatives to promote the use of LPG to reduce air pollution and improve public health. This increased demand puts the onus on storage terminals to use their capacity as efficiently as possible, by optimizing inventory management and safety. This can be achieved by integrating non-contacting radar level gauges into tank gauging systems.

Control’s editor-in-chief, Len Vermillion, spoke with Tomas Hasselgren, manager of global business development at Emerson, about the challenges of LPG tank gauging, and the benefits that can be achieved by using non-contacting radar level gauges rather than traditional level measurement technology.