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WBF Offers Education Opps at ISA Expo

WBF, The Organization for Production Technology, recognizing the financial realities of this year, postponed its 2009 Annual Conference. In its place, the organization is sponsoring two educational opportunities during ISA Expo 2009 in Houston on Monday October 5 and Tuesday October 6. As the leading authority in implementing ISA88,ISA95 and B2MML, WBF has put together "Non-Stop 88--Applying Batch Methods to Continuous and Discrete Processes" and "Getting Real with ISA95 and B2MML: Implementation Case Studies." Both will be led by Dennis Brandl.

The Monday class presents the ISA-88 standard for batch control systems and how these concepts have been successfully applied to continuous and discrete control problems. The class presents the concepts and implementation of batch control systems using the ISA 88 standard and the concepts of modular batch automation. The material also covers the recipe-equipment separation required for flexible manufacturing, the S88 recipe hierarchy, the equipment hierarchy, and the methods for organizing equipment control for reusable and modular control. The methods used to handle procedure controlled startup, shutdown, product switchover, production pauses, splitting and merging of production runs, and other common operational control issues in continuous and discrete processes are covered. These methods all allow the use of commercial batch control systems to control the many procedures in continuous and discrete processes.

The Tuesday class presents the ISA95 standard and the supporting WBF B2MML schema standards and how they have been applied in MES projects and ERP-to-Manufacturing problems... Read more

New at Automation Gear

There are a couple of interesting new products up at the Automation Gear blog. GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has been releasing a lot of new products and upgrades including its process control platform. In this release it announces a new analytics platform for its Proficy Historian... Read more

Podcast interview posted

Another Podcast was posted. In this episode of Automation Minutes, I jump across the pond (via Skype) to talk Lean Manufacturing with Jean-Christophe Ledoux of consulting firm Accenture and Yves Vergnolle, of software supplier Apriso about a project where the companies combined to provide a software solution to companies looking for tools to help them implement Lean Manufacturing... Read more

Largest Opportunities in Process Control

Greg McMillan over at the Modeling and Control blog has another excellent analysis of what are the largest opportunities in process control. Thought we had it all solved? Think again and check this one out... Read more

bunch of thoughts

Bunch of accumulated links as I slowly get caught up after a hectic summer.

Keep fit. Obesity shrinks brain size... Read more

Event Announcement

Registration is Now Open for the Safety Automation Forum event!

Join industry speakers and experts to learn about safety's continued importance within the manufacturing industry, its affect on the top and bottom line, and how changing standards can best be leveraged. Register now to hear leading authorities from around the globe share their expertise on best practices, evolving standards and how integrated safety solutions can help improve production. Our one-day agenda, moderated by Gary Mintchell, Editor in Chief at Automation World will provide opportunities for questions, feedback sessions and networking with industry peers and experts.