The water industry has undoubtedly been one of the major UK application areas that have adopted Profibus control systems on automation projects and upgrades, and Yorkshire Water and United Utilities described similar experiences in introducing the technology, at the Profibus and Profinet User Conference in Stratford-on-Avon last week. For Yorkshire Water, the first intelligent networks were introduced within “Intelligent” MCC panels, but for field networks the EU Freshwater Fish Directive requirements were the main drivers to adopting Profibus systems. Over the last three years their ICA Profibus strategy has involved joining the PI support network, and putting all technicians through Installation and Maintenance Training Courses, conducted on their own premises. Eight ICA engineers were also taken through the Profibus Engineer Course: these were probably organised by Andy Verwer and MMU (Manchester Metropolitan University). UU described a similar development route, and highlighted that over 90% of site issues are down to the installers: Profitrace systems were used in both organisations to do hand-over checking and as an aid to project documentation. Within UU there are maybe 600 WWT sites and 100 waterworks, and Profibus systems so far have been applied to new builds and projects on approaching 200 of these. Mark Cargill, now with MWH Consultants, later described some of the points to remember when extending a network with a Profibus system, and the discussion following his presentation highlighted that there are no water industry overall standards for Profibus systems, so that it is important that the installation contractors and their staff can demonstrate competence or experience with Profibus. Read the rest of this entry »
At a recent press briefing, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms took time to highlight their focus on ‘infrastructure’ industries, confirmed with examples of recent process control system projects, covering oil and gas, power and water. The Fanuc in the name indeed relates to the Japanese CNC machine tool supplier and robotics manufacturer, who have a (minority) share of the joint venture company: and GE Fanuc indeed came from automation in discrete manufacturing. But Gordon Morrison, Western European Director of their Control Systems Business, emphasised that they employ around 10,000 people, spread around the UK, on control system (hardware and software) and are to establish a GE Oil and Gas industry Centre of Excellence in Luton in July 2009. Read the rest of this entry »
In this fast moving internet age, what makes an Institution? The answer still has to be time, and a life independent of the originating enthusiast. So the First Friday Club qualifies, having now passed ten years of operation, and last week having none of the original journalist attendees. Started by Chris Rand, then Editor of Industrial Technology, and Bob Brooks in 1998, the club is designed to bring around 15 editors of the UK engineering press together for some 15 minute presentations, launches or updates from 3 or 4 of the major suppliers, the ones that want their attention, and provide products worth writing about. Then there is the further opportunity for one-to-one interviews and chat over drinks and lunch: the event is held in The Cheshire Cheese, an ancient London pub on Fleet Street. The club saves the editors time, by concentrating several presentations into one event, and saves the supplier companies money. More important these days, with so many editors working from home, it provides a useful meeting point to see both their colleagues and competitors. For many years John Fisher of Fisher Marketing has been entrusted with organizing the event, and some of the regular presenters are Rockwell Automation, ABB, Erwin Sick and Powervar: but any supplier can use the First Friday Club to present their latest developments in an economical way (Link). Read the rest of this entry »
Despite the economic downturn, and the start of Summer, the rate and quality of relevant press releases submitted to the Processingtalk website continues unabated, particularly in terms of informative technical articles. Maybe the business slowdown has allowed the time for our suppliers to put some of their better ideas and achievements into black and white. The only possible change in bias discernible this year is that maybe more of these technical articles describe methods of saving energy or improving efficiency, whether in water use, compressed air systems or motor drive systems. This is in line with a new report from the Aberdeen Group, quoted by Invensys this week in the commercial news section, saying best-in-class companies have reduced energy consumption by 15%, by deploying their advanced energy management tools and techniques. Read the rest of this entry »
:News that NASA has only just completed the water cycle within the International Space Station, producing drinking water for the astronauts by purifying and disinfecting collected waste water and condensation, came as a surprise to me! Manned since 2000, it is one of those things you would have thought essential, just like the air recycling system removes ammonia and CO2, but then of course adds back extra oxygen. Anyway the water cycle is now complete, and even the effluent from the laboratory animals (rats) is reprocessed. Thinking about potential problems with Leptospirosis (Weil’s disease), I tried to find out what sort of recycling systems are being used: they seem to include vacuum distillation and iodine addition. Plus the inevitable medical and fitness tests that need to be passed before being accepted onto a NASA orbital mission mean they will probably only accept healthy rats! Read the rest of this entry »
