ABB has been awarded two major contracts by Plug Power Inc., a leading provider of turnkey solutions for the global green hydrogen economy, to provide the electrical systems for two new hydrogen plants in North America, set to collectively produce 60 tons of green hydrogen per day. Green hydrogen is produced with renewable energy sources and emits zero carbon when used as fuel.
ABB has been awarded a major contract by NatureWorks, the world’s leading manufacturer of polylactic acid (PLA), a low-carbon bioplastic made from renewable agricultural resources, to automate their new, greenfield plant in Thailand, converting sugar cane to the polylactic acid (PLA) biopolymer, Ingeo™.
For manufacturers looking to get started with the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), a common question that comes up is whether they should use the edge or the cloud for data analysis purposes. However, this does not have to be an either-or choice. In fact, both strategies are optimized to fit different needs and can work well together.
When a customer decides they want to implement a cartesian robot for their application, where do they get started? They turn to experts in the industry, like Festo, who has decades of experience in process automation and technology. They are also global leaders in learning systems, training, and consulting. This makes them poised to provide customers with products and solutions that meet their requirements. Festo’s Handling Guide Online, or HGO is an engineering tool that makes it easy to design, configure, and order a handling system.
Data has always existed in the manufacturing environment – in the temperatures, pressures, sounds, and appearance of machinery – but is has not always been easy to access it. Manufacturing professionals would spend years, if not decades, gaining the expertise that would help them understand the meaning of certain measurements and observations. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) promises to revolutionize this learning process by turning such observations into quantitative trends that can be leveraged for decision-making. Consequently, many manufacturers are eager to figure out the best way to dip their toes into the water of IIoT. In this post, Omron looks at some of the overarching strategies for making the most of this new way of using data.
ABB has released its Sustainability Report 2021, outlining the achievements of the company under the four pillars of its ambitious 2030 sustainability strategy. Some hightlihgts of the report include (1) Strong start to achieving 2030 goals of sustainability strategy, (2) ABB cuts own CO2 emissions by 39% in 2021 vs. baseline year of 2019, and (3) ABB one of the first companies in its industry to disclose the eligibility of its offerings in new sustainability classification system “EU taxonomy”
Servo systems are widely used in many precision applications. While careful deliberation on the optimum servo motor, servo drive, and feedback elements is the norm, the cables that connect the power and feedback are often an afterthought that compromises the desired system performance. The four key specifications that must be considered when choosing the right cable design for a servo system are voltage, current, shielding, and flexibility.
Industrial Automation is the automation of general-purpose machinery used in standard or task-specific applications. It can be applied to almost all industries, and primarily deals with the manufacturing, quality control, and material handling processes for those industries. In this article, Electromate explores the A to Z benefits that industrial automation brings to businesses across the world.
A global manufacturer of sanitary conveyor systems used in food and pharmaceutical industries recently began exploring the next generation of variable frequency drive technologies available to power its platforms. A need for better communications for IoT and remote access, improved quality and reliability, and global access to supplies were critical to ensuring the manufacturer could satisfy its customers. This is where Invertek Drives and its Optidrive E3 NEMA 4X / IP66 range of VFDs came in.
As the world’s leading steel producer, steel giant ArcelorMittal focuses on the very latest production technologies. The aim is to make its own production processes permanently safer and more efficient. That includes burner monitoring of the furnaces in its cold rolling mill: the plant in Ghent is used to refine steel coils (strip steel rolls) in accordance with customers’ requirements. However, to enable the steel strip to be cold-formed, it must first be heat treated. So 50 main burners, fed by 30 start-up burners, heat the annealing furnaces to a constant 1200°C. Significant downtimes and exhausting troubleshooting were the rule when the burners failed. After the retrofit, the automation system PSS 4000 now guarantees smooth and productive operation, due also to accelerated fault diagnostics, among other things
The factory of the future would not be possible without communication protocols that facilitate fast and secure data transfer. A protocol is essentially a way of communicating information between devices on a network that follows a set of agreed-upon rules for formatting and processing. As the trend toward data-driven decision-making prompts manufacturers to gather increasingly large amounts of data from the plant floor, these protocols are gaining prominence. Omron looks at two of them, OPC UA and MQTT, that are currently shaping the automation industry
ABB has won a large contract from Australian-listed ioneer Ltd., an emerging lithium-boron supplier committed to becoming an important producer of materials necessary for a sustainable future, for project management, engineering and the supply of power and automation systems. The contract is part of a development program at the customer’s Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Nevada, US, the only known lithium-boron deposit in North America and one of two such deposits in the world. Financial details of the contract were not disclosed. The order was booked in the first quarter of 2022.
Royal HaskoningDHV is pleased to announce that Schneider Electric is now a global preferred supplier for its Nereda® wastewater treatment solution. As a preferred supplier, Schneider Electric will combine the capabilities of its EcoStruxure™ Automation Expert solution, the world’s first universal automation system, with the Nereda technology to develop the next generation of Nereda Process Control. The control system will improve plant process efficiency and allow wastewater customers to have complete lifecycle management, seamless integration of IT/OT services, and improved system diagnostics for their automation systems. and industrial sites.
Conveyor systems play an important role in industries like packaging, food and commodity, and semiconductor manufacturing, and they vary depending on the type, weight, and dimensions of products being transported, and the environment in which they are installed. One thing that all such systems have in common, however, is a certain set of functional safety requirements. A comprehensive approach to keeping your team safe and your machines running will always start with a risk assessment to identify what risks the workers will be exposed to when performing activities like maintenance and troubleshooting. Omron looks at four converyor-related safety considerations you should be aware of.
In today’s industrial manufacturing space, it’s never one thing. Processes are connected, workflows are unified, and decisions in one arena have ripple effects that can impact an entire industrial ecosystem. No one knows this better than systems integrators, who are tasked with coming up with new and better industrial automation solutions every day.
The vision of seamless communication between the cloud right down to every sensor is manifesting – and IIoT is becoming more and more of a reality. Joachim Finke, Head of PM Network Interface Connectors at HARTING explains how Ethernet empowers the IIoT. Mr. Finke explains how industrial Ethernet shapes the industrial transformation by exploring the success of industrial Ethernet over the last few years and discusses the needs of the digital transformation. He also questions whether existing technologies are enough to cope with those requirements. Finally, he discusses new technologies that are certain to shape the future of the industrial transformation. His presentation, At a Glance – How Industrial Ethernet Shapes the Industrial Transformation, was presented at HARTING Industrial Week, 2022.
