Get
your information-to-go via Podcasts: Check out
Automation Minutes with Editor in Chief Gary Mintchell. Taking its name
from Apple’s iPod, this is an Internet-based audio program. You
can go to http://automation.libsyn.com and listen on your
Windows Media Player. Or, you can go to iTunes (or your Internet music
source) and subscribe to the RSS feed (http://automation.libsyn.com/ rss) to directly
download to your iPod. Now you can catch some automation thoughts while
you work out in the morning or on your drive to work.
This is a long re-post
of Dave Winer's blog, and I don't know how many geeks read my blog--but
this is a very interesting thread. Click on the links and read the
comments if you want to a) see how it's possible to have a civil dialog
on the Web and b) learn a lot about XML, XML-RPC and JSON (a new one on
me). Great holiday reading! Read more |
|
In the
burgeoning manufacturing business intelligence, or performance
management, application area, Incuity
Software now has a set of off-the-shelf batch analysis reports that
work directly with Delta V historians from Emerson Process Systems. The
systems supports both continuous and batch historians. This application
area is designed to gather data then place in a context for people to
make better business decisions. In this case, people can use Microsoft
Excel or Incuity's analytic tools to publish graphs, reports and
dashboards. |
|
I don't think I've
ever written about conveyors, but here's an interesting concept. MagneMotion (a company that has a
bunch of really interesting technologies) has launched a product called
MagneMover. It uses magnets (should be no surprise given the names), but
the interesting thing is that they have developed a linear synchronous
motor and packaged it into a product called QuickStick. These are
one-meter long devices that can be linked end-to-end with ways for
pallets to navigate bends and turns. The pallets have magnets embedded
on the bottom and ride on electromagnetic forces. With the linear motor
technology, a controller can know the exact position of all the pallets
on the system. There will be demonstrations at ProMat next month. I'm
sure I saw a brief demo at Assembly this fall and just talked with Todd
Webber, co-founder and president of the company. Among the other
features are small turning radius, "double-bogie vehicle approach for
negotiating turns and merge/diverge points," and magnetic switching that
allows instantaneous (their words) switching without mechanical
actuation. |
|
In case you
missed the comment, Steve Garbrecht of Wonderware left a detailed
comment in response to Amit's question if these new platforms left
legacy users in the cold. Check it out for a detailed look into how this
software works. |
|
Online Development's xCoupler
"enterprise transaction module"--a module that slips into a Rockwell
Automation ControlLogix platform--now supports Microsoft SQL Server 2005
with bi-directional data translation between the two. The module already
supported IBM WebSphere MQ reliable messaging systems, IBM DB2, AS/400,
Oracle, Microsoft SQL and MySQL databases.
|
|
Need to get rid of slow-moving or obsolete
inventory? Consider an auction? Here's a solution just announced today.
Obviously, I sat in on the briefing from
FreeFlow (www.FreeFlow.com), a provider of
hosted inventory asset management solutions based in San Jose, Calif.,
announced a service partnership with (www.ebay.com/privatemarketplace)
on December 19 that unites both companies' solutions to help enterprise
customers maximize sales of excess, aging, returned and refurbished
inventory. This offering of eBay's private marketplace technology and
FreeFlow's pre-auction and post-auction business services presents
customers with a number of options for maximizing inventory asset
recovery and provides end-to-end services to customers desiring a
turnkey asset disposition solution... Read more |
Over the past several weeks, I've interviewed
Isaac Garcia, CEO of Central
Desktop, and several product managers from Adobe Systems. Both companies have
announced "on-demand" collaboration tools. I have started an account at
Central Desktop and have started playing with it. I just received my
copy of Adobe 8 that includes Acrobat Connect (Web conferencing tool).
Automation World has need
of some light-weight collaboration tools, so I'm trying them there. I'm
sure that all of you, whether in engineering or marketing, have many
collaboration needs. Here are a couple that look interesting. The
following is from the news item I wrote for the magazine... Read more |
|
Amit commented on my report of
Wonderware's new platform wondering if this solution was only for big companies since it doesn't support
legacy products. Actually, this issue has been a blessing and a curse
for companies that become established. Microsoft, for instance. When
does making technology backward compatible get in the way of true
advances? Wonderware is taking pains to connect to legacy products of a
variety of kinds, but like everyone it eventually ceases to support
older products. And this is not just a big company/small company issue.
Some small companies budget for upgrades. Imagine the purchase and
support cost within a large company for a major upgrade--for instance
the impending Vista change. He brings up open source SCADA as a
solution. People think open source is nirvana because it's free. But few
things that are valuable are free. The trade off is usually that
companies give the software for free but make money from services. It's
either that or no company. Only Santa Claus has an ongoing operation
based on giving things away with no source of income. Besides, open
source would have the same problem of trying to connect to everything.
That's not easy--or cheap... Read
more |
|
Emory
University and its Goizueta Business School publish the Knowledge@Emory Newsletter, and it
is a link to a wealth of information. Here's a link for
a free subscription... Read more |
|
This is interesting news for those of you
implementing open standards. If you haven't heard of the SCOR model, it
might be a good thing to study. The Supply-Chain Council (SCC), an
international, not-for-profit trade association of companies from
multiple industries and responsible for all development, maintenance,
enhancement and distribution of the Supply-Chain Operations Reference
(SCOR) Model, announced a new member benefit through an alliance with
APQC, a global resource for best practices and benchmarking. With this
new alliance, it is now easier for companies around the world to compare
and contrast their supply chains using the same metrics... Read more
|
|
I've long
since forgotten most of the Morse Code, but I had to learn it when I was
15 or 16 and getting a "Ham" radio license. As we said in chess "The
king is dead, long live the king." Read more |
|
I've just been catching up with the Jason Calacanis blog and he
confirmed the reason why I haven't seen a new Gillmor Gang appear in my
iTunes podcast catcher this month--Steve has canceled the show. TWiT took the week off due to the
death of Cnet's James Kim. So, I'm on tech withdrawl... Read more |
|
The Open DeviceNet Vendors Association forges
agreements with FDT and Sercos International and also releases updated
specifications.
The next editions the DeviceNet and EtherNet/IP
Specifications have been published. These new editions are the second
publication of updates in 2006, and they bring a range of enhancements
to the specifications which further increase ease of configuration... Read more |
|
The big news in the high tech blogosphere
was a meeting between Bill Gates and a group of invited influential
high-tech bloggers (not me, of course).
Steve Rubel whose blog is
titled Micropersuasion reported on the session... Read more
|
|
I just got an update from Steve Garbrecht,
Marketing Program Manager at Wonderware about the new System Platform
that was announced last month. I wrote about the press release here on
November 11. I was somewhat amazed that I saw the press release on the
Web and was not provided a head's up or even sent the press release
personally. In fact, it took a month to have the briefing. I called my
PR contact right away (she's one of the best in the industry). Seems
they made the announcement at the same time that management was involved
in corporate planning for the next fiscal year. Then trying to schedule
a teleconference around my schedule is a PR person's hell... Read more
|
|
A trickle of announcements about automation
company support of Microsoft's
latest operating system, Windows Vista, surely precedes the coming flood
of announcements that will be coming over the next few months... Read more |
|
The ISA's
SP-100 commttee on wireless standards for automation has formed a user
working group to provide input and feedback to the committee's technical
working groups... Read more |
|
Brought to you
by: 
Sign up for our other e-mail
newsletters:
News
Insights:
Product
Insights:
Skills:
TalkPoints:
Industrial Ethernet:
Process
to Packaging:
OPConnect:
Inquiries:
Editorial - gmintchell@automationworld.com
Advertising - jpowers@automationworld.com
Technical - dmccue@automationworld.com
| | |
Sponsored
by: | 
| | |
