Advantech has partnered with Mitsubishi Electric, Omron, NEC, IBM Japan and Oracle Japan to establish the 'Edgecross Consortium' to overcome boundaries between companies and industries in order to realise collaboration between factory automation and IT. [ + ]

Revolutionary drone payload from CSIRO Data61 dramatically improves the value of drone-based asset inspection and mapping. [ + ]

Schneider Electric has been included in CDP's Climate A List for the seventh year running. [ + ]

WEARX, an Australian privately owned wear solutions provider, and the Metso Corporation finalised an agreement on 1 November that will bring the two companies together. [ + ]

Registrations are now open for the 2018 Australasian Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference (AOG 2018), Australia's largest oil and gas industry event. [ + ]

Finnish company Neste Jacobs has launched a new game called NAPCON Games Distiller for operator training in the process industry, which is said to improve training outcomes and speed up the learning process. [ + ]

Emerson and exida have announced the release of a tool designed in collaboration to automatically generate SIS configurations. [ + ]

There is no choice for industrial organisations but to take advantage of cloud computing, according to Vimal Kapur, president of Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS). [ + ]

Schaeffler Group has announced its acquisition of autinity GmbH, an IT company that specialises in machine data recording and evaluation. [ + ]

The Australian National University (ANU) has announced the establishment of the nation's first interdisciplinary Cyber Institute, which will combine expertise from across a range of disciplines to conduct leading research that will help shape the nation's future in the increasingly vital fields of cybersecurity and innovation. [ + ]

Industrial manslaughter laws have been passed in Queensland, which will mean that a company or individual found guilty of industrial manslaughter may now be liable for a fine of up to $10 million, while an individual senior officer may be liable to a term of up to 20 years' imprisonment. [ + ]

With questions surrounding the future of the Australian manufacturing industry with our automotive closures, a new report commissioned by the Advanced Manufacturing Growth Centre (AMGC) has found that the Australian manufacturing industry is larger and more dynamic than currently estimated. [ + ]

Advantech has received an award from ROI Management Consulting for its Industry 4.0-compliant digital factory. The award was given to honour its achievements as a pioneer in the practical implementation of "real-time equipment and resource monitoring". [ + ]

Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS) has announced that Shanghai SECCO Petrochemical Company Limited (SECCO) will upgrade its operator training simulator (OTS) system to the Honeywell Connected Plant UniSim Competency Suite. [ + ]

The Industrial Robotics and Machine Vision zone at the Guangzhou Automation Fair in March 2018 has already been sold out, reflecting the growing demand for robotics and automation technology in China. [ + ]