Sight site tour!

ISA Ireland Section is scheduled to have a Site Tour at Vistakon Ireland manufacturing facility located in Limerick (IRL).

Vistakon produces the Acuvue range of contact lenses which is the leading contact lens product in the world.

The Limerick site uses the most advanced technology in the industry and now employ’s over 740 people directly.

Using a highly automated production process, the site produces both daily disposable and extended wear contact lenses while utilizing state of the art technologies such as injection moulding, robotics, vision systems and sterilisation systems.

Date of the Tour - Wednesday 27th February 2013.
13.45 Event Registration
14.00: Presentations & Site Tour

Registration:
You can register online on the ISA Ireland website.
Places are limited to 25 attendees, preference will be given to ISA members.

New connector modules

Offer mechanical robustness and signal integrity in industrial and transport applications

Two new modules have been added to Harting’s Han-Modular® industrial connector family to provide enhanced mechanical robustness and signal integrity in industrial and transport applications.

The new fully screened Han® Megabit module is especially suited for applications in industry and railway technology. Two data cables can be connected per module, and the product combines assembly convenience with product compactness. The screening design is independent of that of the housing, and the proven Han® D crimp contacts are used. These can be installed into the inserts and arranged to be easily accessible.

Because its mechanical properties meet those of the established Han® Quintax connector, the Han® Megabit module is ideally suited for applications with the highest mechanical specifications, for example for use as an Ethernet interface in railway carriage connections – with the module taking up only half as much space as conventional solutions. The module is designed for data rates of up to 100 Mbit/s, meets Cat.5e performance requirements, and can be used with stranded wires with cross-sections between 0.14 and 2.5 mm2 and cable diameters between 5 and 12 mm.

The new Han® Shielded module is specifically intended for applications in which shielded signal cables are to be designed to function free of interference and to mate securely. Up to 20 shielded signal contacts can be connected with a minimum space requirement, and the metallic shielding reduces to zero any interference from directly adjacent power modules.

A potential problem with applications involving frequency converters is that the power cables can often transfer interference to signal cables. With the new Han® Shielded module, the signal contacts are now shielded against any such adverse effects. This now enables power and signal modules to be transferred in a connector without interference and securely, even in extreme electrical signal conditions.

The module includes 20 shielded contacts, and is designed for use with cable cross-sections between 0.14 and 0.5 mm². Crimp termination offers simple assembly.

The Harting Han-Modular® series, as an open connector system, is capable of flexible adjustment to individual user requirements. It offers users the freedom to assemble their own personal connector combination in the desired configuration. The range currently includes over 40 modules for electrical, optical and gaseous signals, and is being continually expanded, enabling more and more new configurations to be realised.

Automation auditing in Ireland

Endress+Hauser (Ireland) Ltd has launched a new offering to the Irish market. The Installed Based Audit (IBA) will deliver significant benefits to our Irish clients enabling them to optimise maintenance and increase equipment lifecycles on site.

Cristophe Roche of E+H (seated) with
Mathew &  Jackie Dornan of Compucal

The IBA has been successfully delivered by their European colleagues over the last ten years. With the introduction of the IBA Endress+Hauser (Ireland) expects to grow its workforce to support activities and services around the tool to its customer. The IBA was developed in response to their customers’ requirements to understand their installed base instrumentation and ensure they optimised their maintenance activities and reduce downtime or costly unplanned maintenance.

Christophe Roche, General Manager, Endress+Hauser Ireland Ltd said “I am delighted to officially launch IBA in Ireland. This week we are training our sales and service teams in Cork, together with several of our European colleagues. This training is usually conducted in our HQ in Switzerland, however we have been promoting the idea of the ‘Gathering 2013’* and were successful in winning this business for our Irish operation. We have attracted 9 different nationalities to Cork this week: namely from Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Britain.”

* The Gathering Ireland 2013 (Tóstal Éireann 2013) is a spectacular, year-long celebration of all things Irish. Throughout the year, Ireland is opening its arms to hundreds of thousands of friends and family from all over the world, calling them home to gatherings in villages, towns and cities. It coincides wit the Irish language festival "Bliain na Gaeilge 2013."

European expansion

GreenPeak expands global presence with new European office in France

GreenPeak Technologies, one of the leading semiconductor companies in low power RF-communication, in the ZigBee market segment, with a rich offering of communication solutions for Smart Home applications has established a new European office in the Paris region.

“Expanding our global presence with a dedicated European office is part of our commitment to deliver superior products and service to our European based clients.” says Cees Links, founder and CEO of GreenPeak Technologies. “The EU today is one of the world's largest markets and operators are keen to adopt our vision of the Smart Home and the new revenue generating services it entails. Smart Home services will generate the competitive differentiation that European operators need in a rapidly evolving global marketplace. To fully support the quickly growing demand, GreenPeak continues to add dedicated expertise and resources that will be a significant benefit to our valued European customers.”

Patrick Hochez, who brings in a wealth of experience from his previous positions in leading wireless semiconductor companies, will head up the office in Paris, France

Gas monitoring company acquires German distributor

The Finnish instrumentation manufacturer Gasmet Technologies Oy has acquired the share capital of Ansyco GmbH in Germany.

Gasmet Analyser In Situ

Gasmet Technologies is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of gas monitoring instruments and systems for industrial and environmental applications. The company’s revenue streams are dominated by FTIR-based analyzers that are able to perform simultaneous measurements of both organic and inorganic compounds in even the most demanding applications.

Founded in 1989, Ansyco GmbH (Karlsruhe, Germany) has been a distributor of Gasmet products since 1993. The company employs 18 staff and in addition to Gasmet, Ansyco also represents other gas monitoring and detection equipment manufacturers such as Environnement SA (France), Geotechnical Instruments (UK), Perma Pure (USA) and Extrel (USA).

According to Mikko Ahro, CEO of Gasmet Technologies, “The Gasmet Group has been operating from three different locations, Helsinki, Hong Kong and Montreal, and this is a good time to combine Ansyco’s application knowledge with Gasmet’s well-established products to expand the Karlsruhe operation.”

Commenting further on the announcement, Mikko Suuntala, CEO of Gasmet Europe Oy (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Gasmet Technologies), said: “Ansyco has established a large customer base of loyal customers, and benefits from an excellent reputation for customer service and application expertise. This acquisition demonstrates our long-term commitment to these customers and helps us to build a platform for future growth in central Europe.”

Following the acquisition, Ansyco will be known as ‘Ansyco – a Gasmet Group Company’.

“Best Use of Automation” Award to budding engineers!

The Twin Cities (Minneapolis–Saint Paul, MN USA) Section of the International Society of Automation (ISA) on 19 January 2013 presented a “Best Use of Automation” award to a Lino Lakes, Minnesota middle school in conjunction with a national engineering competition.

Standing behind their award entry, are LtoR: Neo Canniff, Kennan LeJuene, Evan Nelsen, and Espen Fredrick.

For the second year in a row, the Twin Cities Section of ISA presented the award at a regional event of the Future City Competition, a national, project-based learning experience where students in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades imagine, design, and build cities of the future.

The annual Future City Competition is sponsored by the National Engineers Week Foundation, a consortium of professional and technical societies and major US corporations. The foundation is focused on helping to remove social, education and economic barriers that may deter young students from engineering and technology education and careers.

Out of the more than 35,000 students from 1,300 middle schools participating in this year’s competition, regional winners will vie for national awards at the event finals, which will be held 15-20 February 2013--coinciding with National Engineers Week, 17-23 February 2013. Founded in 1951, Engineers Week is among the oldest of America's professional outreach efforts.

“All of us within ISA’s Twin Cities Section are excited to sponsor this award, which we hope will help inspire young students to explore what I believe is the best career field in the world,” commented Peter Baker, CAP, CTech, an instrumentation and automation consultant who spearheaded the Twin Cities Section’s award sponsorship. “We feel strongly that it is our responsibility to help raise awareness among young people of the value and potential of automation and engineering careers. As they say, ‘A rising tide lifts all boats.’”

A four-member team of students from Centennial Middle School in Lino Lakes, located just outside of Minneapolis, received the ISA section’s automation award for incorporating the best and most creative use of instrumentation and automation in its Future City Competition building design project.

To compete for the award, school teams worked with mentors to plan their cities using SimCity™ 4 Deluxe software; researched and wrote solutions to engineering challenges; built tabletop scale models with recycled materials; and presented their ideas for judging.

World first for tuning fork level switch !

The latest addition to the VEGA portfolio of vibrating limit switches for liquids, VEGASWING 66, is a world first.

It is designed for reliable, self monitoring and fail safe switching in applications with process temperatures up to +450 °C and process pressures up to 160 bar. Until now, vibrating level switches have been limited to process conditions up to +280 °C and 100 bar. By developing a revolutionary new tuning fork drive, it makes deployment of the instrument possible far beyond these limits. The resulting performance capability is impressive: process temperatures from -196° C to +450° C and pressures from 0 to 160 bar.

Since it is virtually unaffected by product properties, such as changing product density and electrical properties, the vibrating level switch is very versatile. It can be installed in any orientation and supplied in lengths up to 6m, materials include: 316L, Inconel and Hastelloy. Adjustment with product level is not required for setup and it switches reliably and repeatably when a point level is reached. Integrated monitoring capabilities allow accreditation to SIL2 and EN steam boiler regulations and a remote test is also available. VEGASWING 66 is the first level switch for high-pressure, high and low temperature applications; for example distillation columns in the oil and gas industry, steam boilers (for high and low water limits) and in cryogenic, liquid gas tank applications for LNG and nitrogen.