In a nonlinear world, the challenge of advanced loop tuning is to keep continuous and batch processes, as well as discrete operations, functioning cleanly and productively without unplanned downtime.

  Whether training comes by downloadable Web-based study-at-your-own-pace videos, one-hour Web-based seminars called Webinars, single-day classroom sessions or week-long intensive classroom courses, trainers’ goals remain essentially the same: Be effective, impart what students need and get feedback to improve the training.

  Current trends in robotics will enable better human-robot interaction, making robots easier and safer to use.

  Born on May 25, 2007, the Center for Operator Performance (COP, www.operatorperformance.org), in Dayton, Ohio, provides a unique setting for operating companies and vendors to hold open discussions and focus on mutually beneficial research, states Duane Toavs, director of the Ease of Use Center of Excellence at process controls vendor Emerson Process Management (www.emersonprocess.com), in Austin, Texas.

 Jeff Lytle has some unique bragging rights. He entered manufacturing-excellence record books by recently receiving the first-ever Lean Gold Certification. 

  Service-oriented architecture (SOA) visionary Ron Schmelzer thinks businesses create most of their own problems.

  With proximity sensors—proxes—and photoelectric sensors, the question is not only whether to use them, but when and how. For instance, proxes may provide robust solutions because they have no lenses that need cleaning and require little or no adjustment, observes Greg Knutson, senior applications engineer at Minneapolis-based vendor Banner Engineering Corp. (www.bannerengineering.com).

  Try talking seriously about network administration without mentioning security. You can’t, can you?

  To the ears, “spend management” may sound odd. But nothing is strange about a company ensuring that it’s on the path to capture and sustain the level of spending that will make it competitive and keep it successful.

  Training of automation technicians, technologists and engineers should encompass mechatronics’ four facets mechanical engineering/technology, electronics, process control and computer science states Keith Campbell, principal of Campbell Management Services, Palmyra, Pa., and former director of automation and integration for The Hershey Co., the Harrisburg, Pa.-based chocolate and snack food manufacturer.

 While Microsoft Corp.’s Visual Studio is an integrated development environment for general Windows and Web-based applications, the “automation studio” focuses on industrial automation applications, explains Donald Mack, senior marketing specialist in the Process Automation Systems group of automation vendor Siemens Energy & Automation Inc. (www.sea.siemens.com), in Spring House, Pa.

  Considering automation investments? Then have a consistent approach from your company’s portfolio-management standpoint, advises Bob Shepherd, consultant for North American chemical, oil and gas sectors for Invensys’ (www.invensys.com) Houston-based Technical Industrial and Proposal Group. In the risk-management process to settle cost estimates and benefits, each step “is like sticking your toe in to hot water. The idea is: ‘By the time I get to my final investment, I won’t be surprised by the cost.’ ”

  "Success with Lean does not typically revolve around how well you apply a particular tool," asserts Jeff Fuchs, president of Neovista Consulting LLC (www.neovistsconsulting.com), Baltimore. "It [also] does not hinge on the "mechanics" of Lean. Rather, the most common failure modes are on the human side."

 A three-day class on the essentials of Foundation Fieldbus networking has been likened to taking a drink from a fire hose, according to Project Specialist Michael Clark, at the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT), in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.

 For PLC programming, U.S control engineers and technicians turn typically to ladder logic, a programming technique that’s been around since the birth of programmable logic controllers, or PLCs, in the 1960s.

 A Google search for the phrase “help desk outsourcing” produces more than a million hits in a fraction of a second. While that punctuates how help-desk outsourcing has grown, help-desk service providers must still prove they can provide around-the-clock, expert-accessible, immediate service that clients demand.

 Although most companies are willing to invest in training and building a skilled workforce, their biggest complaint has been difficulty in finding meaty courses and seminars for a reasonable dollar.

 It’s budget time again. Oh no, you groan. You’ve heard that the plant manager has to cut expenses by 10 percent for next year and you’re already short-handed.

 When William P. Gaut Jr. traveled to Atlanta recently for industrial product training, he took with him some samples of a float-and-gasket assembly used in one of his company’s medical device products, as well as a copy of the software program he was using for machine vision inspection of those assemblies.