Technology monitors and controls assets scattered across the landscape.

  Manufacturers have an array of good tools to help them implement proven operational excellence strategies.

  Everyone likes a good technical standard. But they tend to like it only when it is done, and there are plenty of competitive products that meet the standard.

  Five to ten times per day in the United States, a worker is severely injured or killed in an electrical arc flash accident, according to Joe Weigel, product manager in Square D Services Marketing for automation and electrical products supplier Schneider Electric, in Palatine, Ill.

  Gartner Inc., the Stamford, Conn., market research firm, has identified the top 10 technologies and trends that it says will be strategic for most organizations.

  Why install the latest generation of safety networks? Most people would put the money saved on less wiring at the top of their list of answers.

  Using wireless sensor technologies in process automation is finally getting out of the labs and into the plants. There remains a reluctance to publicly come out of the closet about using it.

  Manufacturers boost profits with smart inventory automation.

  In October of 2005, U.S. Gypsum Corp. began a plant optimization rollout across 50 manufacturing sites that produce gypsum wall board.

 Andre Ristaino, managing director of the Automation Standards Compliance Institute (ASCI), in Research Triangle Park, N.C., provided Independent Program Assessments and Independent Validation and Verification support for information technology modernization projects at the U.S. Air Force Logistics Command while employed at Deloitte & Touche. He led manufacturing information systems integration projects and provided consulting services for manufacturing operations improvement. Ristaino’s manufacturing industry experience includes pulp and paper, textiles, steel fabrication, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. Ristaino holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Management and a Master of Science in Technology Management.

  A newsprint producer is saving $150,000 annually, thanks to wireless links from its remote scale house to its mill.

  Mistakes in software just can’t happen at NEC’s semiconductor fabrication facility in Roseville, Calif. They are simply too costly and dangerous.

  Fast Digital Fieldbuses Improve Motion Control.

  Here's a look at some of the trials, tribulations and challenges faced by two early end-users of industrial wireless networking technology, along with some lessons learned and benefits gained.

  Lean supply chain helps Boeing become even leaner.

 Shaw’s integrated network cuts downtime.

  (Sidebar to "Gleaning Efficiency from Global Standards" from the July 2007 issue of Automation World)

 Manufacturing intelligence applications provides the heart of performance management.

  U.S. manufacturing companies discover what it takes to be competitive here and how to grow in Asia.

  A Red Team test involves an all-out attempt to covertly gain access to a company’s critical plant control systems, using both cyber and physical means. These guys haven’t failed yet, and they’ve never been caught. Here’s a close-up look at how they do it.