Water industry leader is global industry manager

25+ years of hands-on experience in Water & Wastewater Industry

Today 22 March 2012 is World Water Day and on this day appropriately enough GE Intelligent Platforms  have  announced that Terry Biederman has been named Global Industry Manager for its Water & Wastewater industry. Biederman brings 25+ years of experience in the day-to-day management of water utilities as well as a keen knowledge of the technologies needed to run a world-class facility.

Prior to joining GE, Biederman served as the Director of Public Works for the Township of Waterford, (MI USA), the third most populated township in the state with a population of approximately 71,000 people since 1996. The Department of Public Works (DPW) is responsible for potable water treatment and delivery, wastewater collection and transportation, building and ground maintenance, and fleet maintenance. Biederman managed 52 full-time employees and an $18 million annual budget.

“Terry Biederman’s reputation for successful implementation of innovative solutions is renowned in the industry,” said Alan Hinchman, Global Market Director for GE Intelligent Platforms’ Infrastructure Industry. “I have worked with him personally and know him to have tremendous vision into the solutions needed to run a complex organization in a way that is both innovative and insightful.”

In his new role, Biederman will have global responsibility for GE Intelligent Platforms’ activities in the Water & Wastewater industry including working with customers to advise and counsel on a variety of technology solutions supported by the company’s industry-leading Proficy® Software platform and PACSystems® control systems.

Bringing Biederman on board during the week of World Water Day highlights GE Intelligent Platforms’ on-going commitment to bringing innovative hardware and software automation solutions to municipal water and wastewater plants.

GE Intelligent Platforms is also supporting World Water Day through the Our Water Counts movement. The Our Water Counts weekly blog – in celebration of World Water Day – will feature daily blogs on the global water crisis. Our Water Counts is an interactive web site and active blog featuring real discussions between all water stakeholders to create new, innovative ways to solve how the world sources, treats, moves and uses water.

European embedded computing sales team includes Ireland & Britain

Anglia Embedded  has been appointed as Britain and Ireland embedded channel distribution partner for Advantech, a world leader in single board computers (SBC), with effect from 31 March 2012. The agreement greatly strengthens the embedded distributor’s range for industrial automation, digital signage, kiosk and other embedded computing applications.

Paul Senior, Anglia, &
Andy Courtney, Advantech

“Advantech completes Anglia Embedded’s full house of technologies from the world leading brands,” said Steve Rawlins, CEO at Anglia. “Anglia Embedded can now offer its customers a full portfolio of system components sourced from the world’s top brands, spanning displays, communications and SBCs.”

“We are pleased to welcome Anglia to the Advantech family of resellers,” said Bart de Vreese, European Channel Sales Director at Advantech. He continued, “The experience and knowledge of Anglia’s staff is what truly sets them apart. Adding the Advantech Embedded Core range to its display and connectivity product lines will enable Anglia to offer a full solution to its customers, enhancing its commitment to understand, apply and deliver.”

According to David Pearson, Technical Director at Anglia, the agreement with Advantech is hugely significant because it is a world leader in industrial PCs, panel PCs, rack mount PCs and standalone PC and ARM core based embedded boards. “Advantech has been building top quality, high performance computing platforms since 1983. Anglia Embedded is proud to add this key line to its portfolio.” he said.

Paul Senior, Divisional Marketing Manager for Anglia Embedded added, “Embedded computing technologies from Advantech package the popular PC architecture in a range of formats to support the growing diversity of embedded computing applications that are enabling an intelligent planet. Their products are enabling companies to use less energy in their premises, optimise their manufacturing processes, communicate with their customers through inspiring interactive digital signage, and improve their security.”

In addition to Advantech, the Anglia Embedded line-up of quality embedded products also includes Hitachi displays and Cinterion, connectBlue, Fastrax and Telegesis wireless technologies.

Infrared thermometers

Versatile sensor system meets a wide range of industrial application requirements

Ircon® has introduced the Modline® 7 Series of infrared thermometers. Combined with Ircon ModView™ Pro software and a variety of accessories, the Modline 7 Series provides best-in-class solutions for demanding industrial environments.

The Modline 7 is a rugged, IP65 (NEMA 4) sealed sensor system with the flexibility to meet nearly any continuous temperature monitoring and control requirement. The thermometers are used in a wide range of industrial applications, including semiconductor manufacturing, metals processing, furnace refractory, primary and secondary glass, as well as plastics thermoforming.

The Modline 7 offers exceptional versatility with extended temperature ranges (-40°F to 5432°F/3000°C), high-resolution optics and fast response times. The thermometer's sensing head can operate as a stand-alone sensor, providing simultaneous analog and digital outputs of process temperatures. Motorized focus control and both through-the-lens and laser sighting are standard on all units.

The new thermometer's intuitive sensor design-with integral water-cooling in a stainless steel enclosure or high-temperature water jacket-reduces installation and setup time. The water jacket is intended for use in ambient temperatures up to 599°F/315°C with an integrated air purge capability. An optional air purge collar accessory enables the lens to be cooled and kept free of debris in hot dusty environments.

In addition, the Modline 7 standardized installation accessories and common Windows ModView Pro software platform minimize multiple product configurations at the user's facility. Sensor setup and monitoring can be accomplished either from the rear panel of the instrument or from the ModView Pro software. This allows for remote PC-based sensor configuration, temperature monitoring, trending and archiving via an intuitive graphical user interface. For example, users can change the temperature display from degrees Fahrenheit to degrees Celsius, adjust emissivity levels, scale the range, focus the sensor, activate filters (e.g., peak hold, valley hold, and averaging) and save data for future reference or graphing.

The sensor system also features preset alarms for early warning detection, system on/off control or quality record keeping. A programmable relay output can be triggered automatically by product temperature (process alarm), sensor internal temperature (sensor alarm) or manually.

Modline 7 Series thermometers use high-speed digital signal processors with an RS-485 serial data communications networking capability that supports up to 32 sensors. The ModView Pro software is included at no additional cost with all new Modline 7 Series thermometers.

Alliance to aid cloud development!

Company works with Microsoft to deliver cloud-based manufacturing solutions

Invensys Operations Management has announced an alliance with Microsoft Corp. for migrating some Invensys applications to the Windows Azure cloud. By bringing together industrial thought and technology leaders, the alliance expands the company’s continuing relationship with Microsoft and will afford end users cloud-based offerings in the manufacturing and infrastructure operations space.

“As Microsoft’s Alliance ISV Industry Partner of the Year in 2011, we are excited to enter into this alliance, which further defines our position as a leading provider of automation solutions that help optimise manufacturing business operations in real time,” said Ravi Gopinath, president, Invensys Operations Management’s software business. “Working with Microsoft reinforces the strategic alignment between our two companies, with a mutual goal of using Windows Azure technology to bring leading-edge cloud solutions to the industrial market. By offering cloud-based variants of our existing Historian and business process management solutions, we can help our customers lower costs, reduce systems complexity and cut hardware and software investments, while creating a high-performance environment for more agile operations management.”

Within the alliance, Microsoft will help Invensys accelerate the development of its Wonderware® Historian and Workflow applications to enable them to run on the Windows Azure cloud. Initial development activities will extend existing Invensys solutions with managed history and reporting capabilities, as well as business process management on demand.

“Invensys is an example of how Microsoft continues to work with companies that use our platforms to build the solutions their manufacturing customers need to address the critical operating issues they face each and every day,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president, developer and platform evangelism, at Microsoft. “Providing cloud-based reporting and collaboration services allows these customers to pay for what they use, which means they can better scale and manage their technology deployment costs. It’s an attractive model for any customer that has widely distributed operations, limited IT resources or the need to rapidly scale. Customers will have the choice of different usage models, so they pay for only what they need.”

New display demanding monitoring applications

IPS-Pro technology evolution enables high resolution, small pixel pitch displays

Hitachi Display Products Group (DPG) has announced the introduction of a new IPS (in-plane switching) 9.0” TX23D86VM0BAA TFT display module. The WXGA display features a resolution of 1280 x 768 pixels and uses the latest enhancement of Hitachi’s IPS display technology, IPS-Pro New Process.

Optical performance, contrast, uniformity and brightness are excellent and the display module is ideally suited to broadcast or medical monitoring applications where the information represented on the display image must be accurate and easily interpreted. IPS-Pro provides a very stable display image over a very wide viewing angle of 176° making it ideally suiting to multi-viewer applications

Steve Donohoe, Technical Manager, Hitachi DPG, commented, “IPS-Pro New Process has been developed to enable higher resolution display panels with smaller geometry pixels. The new process implemented in the LCD cell also ensures good light transmittance from the backlight through to the front of the display. This is the most recent enhancement of IPS technology and has enabled Hitachi to ensure that the new 9.0” TFT display has excellent black level uniformity, high colour saturation and an exceptional contrast ratio of 1000:1.”

A long life LED backlight provides a brightness of up to 350cd/m². An integrated LED controller enables the backlight to be dimmed making it possible for the viewer to fine tune the backlight brightness to suit a particular viewing environment.

A 6-bit data interface featuring FRC (frame rate control) enables up to 16.7million colours to be displayed via the single channel 30-pin LVDS data interface. The TX23D86VM0BAA display module features mechanical dimensions of 216mm (w) x 142mm (h) x 11.7mm (t) and an extended operating temperature range of -20°C to +70°C.

Embedded Controller Featuring 2nd GenerationIntel® Core i5™ Processor

New controller offers 50% improved processing power and new peripherals

National Instruments has announced the NI PXIe-8115 high-performance embedded controller featuring the latest dual-core 2^nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor, which helps reduce test times and is ideal for multicore applications. The PXIe-8115 controller features a rich set of peripheral I/O ports with six industry-leading USB 2.0 ports. These onboard peripheral ports minimise the need for external peripheral adapters and help engineers build cost-effective hybrid systems. To improve the serviceability and minimise downtime, this embedded controller features In-ROM and hard drive diagnostics to determine the controller’s health. By combining the controller with NI LabVIEW system design software, engineers can gain efficiency in a variety of test, measurement and control applications.

The Intel Core i5-2510E processor gives the NI PXIe-8115 controller a 2.5 GHz base clock frequency and uses Intel Turbo Boost Technology to automatically increase the clock frequency based on the application type. For example, when running applications that generate only a single processing thread, the CPU places the one unused core into an idle state and increases the active core’s clock frequency from 2.5 GHz to 3.1 GHz. This feature removes the need for software applications to be multithreaded to use the latest CPU developments. The flexibility to operate in a dual-core or a high-performance single-core mode makes the controller ideal for a variety of applications, including high-performance automated test and industrial control.

In addition to high CPU performance, the NI PXIe-8115 controller features six USB 2.0 ports, two display ports to connect to multiple monitors, dual-Gigabit Ethernet, GPIB, serial and parallel ports. This extensive peripheral I/O no longer requires the purchase of individual PXI modules. Engineers can optimise use of the slots in a PXI chassis because the slots are available for measurement modules rather than standard I/O. For memory-intensive applications, the controller comes standard with 2 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 memory with up to 8 GB of maximum memory and support for the Windows 7 64-bit operating system. The NI PXIe-8115 controller combined with the NI PXIe-1082 chassis is ideal for intensive analysis, signal and image processing and high-speed data acquisition.

To improve the reliability of PXI systems, the NI PXIe-8115 controller features In-ROM and hard drive diagnostics for serviceability of the PXI embedded controller. With this new feature, engineers no longer have to use third-party tools to determine the health of the memory and hard drive. By combining the analysis of the diagnostics with spare hard drive and memory options from National Instruments, the improved serviceability of the NI PXIe-8115 reduces downtime and ensures minimal impact to the application. 

Magnetic float level switches approved for safety instrumented systems

SIL 1 suitable level switch is ideal for high and low liquid level alarm duties in the oil and gas, power, refining and chemical industries

Selected models of Emerson's Mobrey Horizontal Magnetic Float Level Switches have been certified in accordance with IEC61508 to attain (Safety Integrity Level) SIL 1 for a single device and SIL 2 for a pair of devices.

Following successful third-party evaluation by global organisation Exida, Mobrey Horizontal Magnetic Float Level Switches have the required Failure Modes, Effects and Diagnostic Analysis (FMEDA) report. The models assessed and certified are typically used in the oil and gas, power, refining and chemical industries, and are ideal for high and low liquid level alarm, overfill alarm, and pump control duties.

The use of certified devices provides a measure of quality and reliability, making it much easier to design and implement a safety system in process applications that must comply with the IEC 61508/61511 functional safety standard.

Mobrey Horizontal Magnetic Float Level Switches provide robust and reliable level switching in most liquids. The magnetically coupled design enables reliable operation even when operating in extremes of pressure and temperature. Measurements are unaffected by changes in process temperature, dielectric, or the presence of vapours and there is a wide range of flanges, floats and switching outputs to suit all types of liquid level application.

There are no glands or linkages that could cause leaks, or springs that require maintenance. The snap action mechanism ensures a clean make or break of the switch contacts and there is the option of a hermetically sealed switch mechanism to eliminate freezing and corrosion of contacts and all moving parts. Other options include versions with marine approvals and ATEX certifications for use in hazardous areas.