ABB’s drives and motors have surpassed the energy-efficiency requirements of a new WA desalination plant while pumping seawater to produce 50 billion litres of drinking water annually. [ + ]

A Midwest US power plant has eliminated spillover of fly ash from its hoppers, by enlisting Endress+Hauser to assist in the upgrade of its level switch technology. [ + ]

Cleaning in place (CIP) refers to the use of a mix of chemicals, heat and water to clean machinery, vessels or pipework without dismantling the plant. [ + ]

Climate change, increasing water demands due to global urbanisation and regulatory obligations are all making the water sector an attractive arena for technologies that can help reduce costs and contribute to reducing the effects of climate change. [ + ]

DNP3, or Distributed Network Protocol, has been around for close to two decades now. It was developed by Westronic in 1993, primarily for the power industry. [ + ]

Carlton & United Breweries (CUB), Australia’s largest brewer, operates five breweries in Australia as well as breweries in Fiji and Samoa. Its Yatala Brewery in Queensland is one of the most state-of-the-art breweries in the world, producing 450 million litres of beer each year. [ + ]

In Part 1 of this article we looked at standard methods of Layer 2 network redundancy that involve auto-reconfiguration of the network topology after a failure. This time we continue and look at redundancy methods that are fully redundant. [ + ]

The harmonisation deadline set by COAG in 2008 was 1 January 2012, but that deadline has well and truly passed with us seemingly no closer to the desired end state. [ + ]

Industrial computers need to be designed to withstand vibration and shock, which are a fact of life in many industrial applications. [ + ]

The costs of failure in today’s industrial networks can be very high, making network redundancy essential. [ + ]

Automation engineers have traditionally implemented and tested their control algorithms by running them on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) connected to actual machinery. A major drawback to this approach is that it can be expensive, difficult, or dangerous to test the control strategy for the first time on the machine. [ + ]

The high Australian dollar and relatively high labour costs make the need for an efficient process critical. Process automation can contribute significantly to this. [ + ]

Compared with parallel wiring, fieldbus systems have a negative impact on the availability of process-related plants and systems. This is because users have to isolate the entire bus segment from the network in order to, say, replace a defective component. [ + ]

Businesses must find a balance between strong financial outcomes and the responsibility for sustainable energy consumption and reduced carbon emissions. Changes made in processes to facilitate sustainability should be viewed as a long-term proposition that rewards with more than just regulatory compliance. [ + ]

National Manufacturing Week (NMW) 2012 returns to Sydney this May, and it’s going to be big: 10,000 anticipated visitors, over 300 local and international manufacturing industry suppliers and a record 12 Product Zones. [ + ]