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Thursday Morning Scary Read

nbartels — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 06:51:15 -0800

Nancy Bartels driving the blogging machine here this morning. I am not by nature an alarmist, and I tend to ignore headlines that say (or imply) "OMG, we're all going to die!" On the other hand, when you smell smoke in the kitchen for longer than a couple of minutes, it can't hurt to assume something more than the toast is burning. Which brings us to this link from Dark Reading.

Out of Control--Ten Ways You Know Your Internet Connection Is a Little Slow

nbartels — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 06:37:44 -0800

Here's a bit of help from our IT department. No, actually it comes from our resident wag, Joe Kaulfersch at Pepperl + Fuchs.

Ten Ways You Know Your Internet Connection Is a Little Slow

Read the February 2012 Digital Edition of Our Magazine

kbonfante — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:37:19 -0800

This month we introduce the newest three members of the Process Automation Hall of Fame. We also bust some myths about Foundation fieldbus, explore when to use guided-wave radar, and hear an argument in favor of multiple standards for the same technology. Access our issue now. Here it is in PDF format if you prefer that.

Is antivirus adequate to protect industrial control system networks?

jweiss — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:30:16 -0800

I received the following white paper from Marcelo Branquinho at TiSafe - http://www.slideshare.net/tisafe/white-paper-are-antivirus-solutions-enough-to-protect-industrial-plants. The testing shows interesting results about the inability of many current antivirus solutions to detect malware and protec

Fieldbus On-Line Diagnostics

iverhappen — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:52:11 -0800

Because off-line tools by their nature are unable to report back to the appropriate person when something happens the majority of FF Power Supply manufacturers either already offer or I am confident are working on developing on-line network diagnostic modules to continually monitor and report to a central system as soon as something happens so appropriate action can be taken.

ECM article on control system cyber security

jweiss — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:58:02 -0800

The January 2012 issue of EC&M magazine cover story is an article: "How secure are industrial control systems within today's facilities from cyber threats"

It feels like just yesterday! @Ashcroft is 160! #pauto #automation #mfg #manufacturing

waltboyes — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:48:51 -0800

Consider the lowly pressure gauge. Consider it well. From it, all of the control and automation in process industries follows as a logical progression. Happy birthday to the folks who started it all.

Here's the press release:

Let's do the acquisition polka! @Siemens buys RuggedCom; @ABB buys Thomas and Betts #pauto #mfg #manufacturing

waltboyes — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:26:59 -0800

Amid reports that US manufacturing has expanded for the 29th month in a row, and growing hope for a lessening of fear (or at least fear-mongering) in the European debt crisis, and hope that the Chinese will have engineered a "soft landing" for their no-longer-growing at hothouse rates economy, the automation giants are beginning to spend some of the great big gobs of cash they've been squirreling away for that proverbial downpour. Apparently, they are beginning to think that we aren't going back into a recession, and they won't need that cash.

Off Line Fieldbus Network Analysis Tools

iverhappen — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 08:12:07 -0800

The original network analysis tool was the National Instruments Bus Monitor, developed at approximately the same time as Foundation Fieldbus was being introduced. This tool was designed to monitor the data traffic on fieldbus networks. It was not until Relcom introduced the FBT-3 that a physical layer troubleshooting tool specific for Fieldbus was available. Prior to the FBT-3 the only options were multimeter and oscilloscope, with no way of knowing which devices were communicating when a signal trace went by.

It's official: Sustainability Pays! @MIT and @BCG say it must be true! #pauto #automation #sustainability #mfg #manufacturing

waltboyes — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:45:01 -0800

Advocates of sustainable business and manufacturing practices, including me, have been saying for years that a sustainable enterprise is not only possible and practical, but that it is profitable beyond the low hanging fruit of energy savings from replacing light bulbs and the like.

Here's an article from our sister publication @SustainablePlant that says we have not been wrong.