Activity

  • Cybersecurity Strategies for the Rise of Next-Gen Automation

    Jim Cahill
    Today’s most successful organizations are facing a wide variety of new challenges: a need for increased flexibility, a push toward more sustainable operations, a shrinking experienced workforce, and more. Meeting those challenges will require unlocking the next generation of automation , such as a Boundless Automation vision for unshackling data and driving efficiency from the field to the edge and throughout the enterprise…

  • Better Automation Across the Plant and Across the Lifecycle

    Jim Cahill
    Like any process manufacturing industry, the food and beverage industry is focused on operational excellence to deliver the best product safely and on time. However, many small and medium sized processers are discovering the need to incorporate more automation into their plants. Fewer available personnel coupled with aging equipment and more complex supply chains are driving a need for increased automation to support…

  • How to Wire Smart Antennas in WirelessHART Networks

    Jim Cahill
    Emerson’s Automation YouTube channel has a great “How-To” playlist featuring videos to help you with your valves, instruments, and software applications. For example, a recently posted video, How to Wire an Emerson Wireless 781S Smart Antenna With Terminal Block (run-time 4:31) provides step-by-step instructions on how to wire an Emerson Wireless 781S Smart Antenna to an Emerson 1401S1 or 1410S2 Wireless Gateway . …

  • Delivering on the Promise of Industry 4.0

    Jim Cahill
    We finally got our wish. Industry 4.0 delivered a wide array of new technologies—sensors, edge devices, mobile devices, and more—that now collect, and sometimes deliver, massive amounts of data from every asset imaginable. However, that leaves a lot of organizations asking, “Was that it? I thought Industry 4.0 was supposed to usher in the next Industrial Revolution. It seems to me that all it brought was a bunch of data…

  • Power Play: Generative AI “Toys” will Shape the Future of Automation

    Jim Cahill
    Hopefully by now you’ve had some fun playing around with some of the many Generative AI tools available for free across the internet. Whether you’ve asked ChatGPT to write some poetry for Mother’s Day or tested out the powerful image rendering capabilities of Midjourney, or used DeepAI to colorize some old family photos, there are many ways to have fun and waste time playing around with the hottest digital craze. However…

  • Digital Valve Controller Diagnostic Alerts Maximize Maintenance Efficiency

    Jim Cahill
    Digital valve controllers offer many benefits over simple valve positioners, including the ability to detect and report degrading valve performance in advance of outright failure. However, implementing a comprehensive diagnostics program to take advantage of these features can be a daunting task. My article in the September 2024 issue of Processing , titled “ Activate diagnostic alerts to leverage digital valve controller…

  • The Power of Modern Simulation

    Jim Cahill
    The continuing changes in the electrical grid that have come as a result of the shift toward more renewable energy have dramatically increased complexity of power generation and distribution operations. Operators not only need to keep a close eye on their plants to ensure they are supplying (and not over-supplying) adequate power, but they also need to predict the future and react—following both weather forecasts and…

  • Enhanced Connectivity in Digital Valve Controllers

    Jim Cahill
    Despite numerous advancements to digital valve controllers in recent decades, their local user interfaces and connectivity options have remained somewhat limited. My article in the August 2024 issue of Process Industry Informer , titled “ Digital Valve Controller Connectivity Improvements ,” discusses how the next generation of digital valve controllers expands user interface capabilities and connectivity features to…

  • Life Sciences and Automation Companies Deliver the Future—Together

    Jim Cahill
    In the life sciences, bringing treatments to market quicker is no longer a bonus. Today, accelerating the treatment development pipeline is an expectation—arguably a core value—of the world’s most respected pharmaceutical companies. The pipeline for the COVID vaccine showed us that it was possible to operate differently , and companies around the globe have not only taken note; they’ve taken action . However, accelerating…

  • Pragmatic Innovation Unlocks the Next Generation of Automation

    Jim Cahill
    There can be little doubt that the automation industry has seen significant innovation over the last four decades, from dedicated equipment, to off the shelf components, to electronic marshalling, to virtualization. In fact, those massive innovations only scratch the surface of how automation has grown. However, in his recent article in Hydrocarbon Processing , Emerson’s Claudio Fayad posits that those changes will…

  • Tailoring Automation for Tailored Medicines

    Jim Cahill
    The life sciences industry is changing rapidly. Where once companies were focused on developing blockbuster treatments and manufacturing them as quickly and safely as possible, today, personalized medicine has changed that landscape. Now life sciences companies are looking at specialized treatments like cell and gene therapies which are developed and manufactured quite differently from those traditional blockbuster drugs…

  • World’s Only WirelessHART Remote I/O Devices Provide Universal Connectivity

    Jim Cahill
    About 150 years ago, L. L. Zamenhof created Esperanto to be an international language that the entire world could adopt. While his aims were noble, it didn’t catch on. Process manufacturers have had similar problems because instrument and device-level industrial networks can use any one of various incompatible protocols to exchange data. But now, market forces, rather than simple good intentions, are settling on WirelessHART…

  • World’s Only WirelessHART Remote I/O Devices Provide Universal Connectivity

    Jim Cahill
    About 150 years ago, L. L. Zamenhof created Esperanto to be an international language that the entire world could adopt. While his aims were noble, it didn’t catch on. Process manufacturers have had similar problems because instrument and device-level industrial networks can use any one of various incompatible protocols to exchange data. But now, market forces, rather than simple good intentions, are settling on WirelessHART…

  • Scaling Innovation in the Lithium Battery Boom

    Jim Cahill
    It often feels as though electric vehicles went from niche to commonplace overnight. And as much as the general public is feeling that shift, manufacturers are feeling it even more. The demand for lithium batteries , and the raw materials to power them, has seen an incredible increase. This shift has created a stress point, forcing manufacturers to speed production to keep up, but has also created an incredible opportunity…

  • Scaling Innovation in the Lithium Battery Boom

    Jim Cahill
    It often feels as though electric vehicles went from niche to commonplace overnight. And as much as the general public is feeling that shift, manufacturers are feeling it even more. The demand for lithium batteries , and the raw materials to power them, has seen an incredible increase. This shift has created a stress point, forcing manufacturers to speed production to keep up, but has also created an incredible opportunity…

  • Rethinking Reliability Strategies

    Jim Cahill
    Industrial Engineering works in front of monitoring screen in the production control center. technology concept. At many plants around the globe, reliability strategies haven’t changed much in the last few decades. Technicians grab a documentation device—sometimes an Android or iOS device, sometimes a hardened laptop, other times, a fit-for-purpose handheld communicator—and head into the field to perform their scheduled…

  • Rethinking Reliability Strategies

    Jim Cahill
    Industrial Engineering works in front of monitoring screen in the production control center. technology concept. At many plants around the globe, reliability strategies haven’t changed much in the last few decades. Technicians grab a documentation device—sometimes an Android or iOS device, sometimes a hardened laptop, other times, a fit-for-purpose handheld communicator—and head into the field to perform their scheduled…

  • Dump Data Overload with a Boundless Automation Vision

    Jim Cahill
    Data. You have it. You might even want more of it. And, if statistics are any guide, chances are you simultaneously see areas where you have too much of it. In recent years, as computing technology has expanded and sensing equipment has rapidly decreased in price and complexity, maintenance and reliability teams have been quick to instrument their equipment. As instrumentation grew, more and more data started coming…

  • Dump Data Overload with a Boundless Automation Vision

    Jim Cahill
    Data. You have it. You might even want more of it. And, if statistics are any guide, chances are you simultaneously see areas where you have too much of it. In recent years, as computing technology has expanded and sensing equipment has rapidly decreased in price and complexity, maintenance and reliability teams have been quick to instrument their equipment. As instrumentation grew, more and more data started coming…

  • Cosun leverages real-time information for value creation

    Jim Cahill
    At the Emerson Exchange EMEA 2024 in Düsseldorf, Robin Kobesen, innovation manager smart operations at Cosun, provided an overview of the company’s Smart Operations program, including many of its organizational, technical and project-related challenges and best practices. His presentation, entitled `Ignite collaboration through real-time predictions’, won the award for most innovative Boundless Automation application…

  • Cosun leverages real-time information for value creation

    Jim Cahill
    At the Emerson Exchange EMEA 2024 in Düsseldorf, Robin Kobesen, innovation manager smart operations at Cosun, provided an overview of the company’s Smart Operations program, including many of its organizational, technical and project-related challenges and best practices. His presentation, entitled `Ignite collaboration through real-time predictions’, won the award for most innovative Boundless Automation application…

  • Can we take advantage of Gen-AI to increase human efforts in industrial automation?

    Jim Cahill
    As the hype around generative artificial intelligences (Gen-AI) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Bing Chat, increases, there is a false belief that it will replace many human creative products like written content, computer code, technical documents, graphic works… So far, these affordable and free AI tools have been widely used to create content that has non-critical implications. But some concerns may arise, if we consider to…

  • Can we take advantage of Gen-AI to increase human efforts in industrial automation?

    Jim Cahill
    As the hype around generative artificial intelligences (Gen-AI) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Bing Chat, increases, there is a false belief that it will replace many human creative products like written content, computer code, technical documents, graphic works… So far, these affordable and free AI tools have been widely used to create content that has non-critical implications. But some concerns may arise, if we consider to…

  • Can we take advantage of Gen-AI to increase human efforts in industrial automation?

    Jim Cahill
    As the hype around generative artificial intelligences (Gen-AI) like ChatGPT, Gemini, Bing Chat, increases, there is a false belief that it will replace many human creative products like written content, computer code, technical documents, graphic works… So far, these affordable and free AI tools have been widely used to create content that has non-critical implications. But some concerns may arise, if we consider to…

  • Electronic Batch Reports Support Digital Transformation

    Jim Cahill
    Hovione  is a contract development and manufacturing company dedicated to helping pharmaceutical customers bring new and off-patent drugs to market. As part of the digital transformation conference stream at Emerson Exchange EMEA 2024 , Mariana Brás, senior process automation engineer at Hovione, explained how electronic batch reporting has helped ensure the company follows good manufacturing practices (GMP), reducing…

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