Activity
  • Getting the Power and Grounding Right

    The finest instrumentation, final control, and control systems won’t deliver the performance you require if the power and grounding are not right. I caught up with Emerson’s Stephan Kerrebijn who highlighted its importance as the basis for a reliable...
  • Correcting Control Network Communications

    Reliability is a broad topic for process manufacturers. It encompasses plant equipment, the production process, reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) programs, overall equipment effectiveness (OEE)—just to name a few. We’ve touched on many of these areas...
  • Hazards of Single Method of Cyber-Security Defense

    Over at the Tofino blog is a post, SCADA Security: A Call-out to Control Engineers about Air Gaps, which every process automation professional should read. Eric Byres opens the post: Last week I discussed how security experts and ICS / SCADA vendors are...
  • Loading and Maintaining Control System PCs–Automation or IT Department?

    ControlGlobal.com had an interesting article, Firewall Needed Between AT and IT? Should the Business IT Group or the Controls Group Load the DeltaV Machines? AT is the automation technology team and IT is the information technology team. The question...
  • Security across the Control System Lifecycle

    Over at the Tofino Security blog is a post, PLC Security Risk: Controller Operating Systems. A question was posed to the blog’s author: How could a hacker possibly attack an industrial controller like a PLC or SIS, since there is no operating system in...
  • Managing Automation System Components across Lifecycle

    Buddy Ilao provides another screencast update in showing ways to manage the software versions and hardware components within a process automation system across their respective lifecycles. He describes this Lifecycle Status for Guardian Support screencast...
  • A Little Help from my Friends on the Rosemount Technical Support Team

    An engineer came across one of my blog posts and sent me a question about the configuration of a Rosemount 3051C pressure transmitter: I’m working on a system that uses several 3051C coplanar pressure transmitters. The transmitters were installed to provide...
  • On-line Alarm Analysis with Guardian Alarm Management

    Emerson’s Buddy Ilao, a member of the SureService support team, offers up his fifth screencast on aspects of the SureService Guardian Support service. Buddy’s earlier efforts are located in this blog’s screencast category. Today’s screencast provides...