You don't need a crystal ball to see into the short-term future of machine controls and automation. Several trends have surfaced, but still more are on the horizon. What are you seeing?

Replacing the components of a time-tested, successful machine can be a risk. But maintaining a reputation for quality often means making improvements before obsolescence or failure warrants it. When is the right time to upgrade?

Want more information? Read our article "Winemaking Machine Benefits From Motor-Drive Combination"

After-sales support, especially replacement parts, can be tricky when selling into foreign markets. How does your company handle support and component replacement on machines in other countries?

Laser sensors provide advantages over presence sensors, such as access to difficult-to-reach locations and dimensional measurement, but these upsides translate into a more expensive component. Tell us what you're using laser sensors for.

What’s the best way to gain market share? By investing during a downturn. Beckhoff Automation is doing just that in a number of ways.

First, they substantially increased the size of their booth at the recent Hanover Fair in Germany. Second, they continue to support their relatively expensive direct sales model in the U.S. because they believe it provides superior service to their clients. Third, they just completed a multi-city tour in the U.S. to educate existing and perspective customers on their products and services.  read more »

Over the past decade, PC-based controls and dedicated controllers have had their comparative advantages and disadvantages scrutinized. We recently surveyed our readers, asking who has switched control preferences of late, and contrary to what some might have expected, our report indicates that the biggest change - almost one-third - as been from PLC to PAC, defined by most of those same respondents as a hybrid controller with PLC and PC capabilities that integrates motion and data acquisition with control and monitoring. And yet a select few - almost 8% - admitted changing platforms to PC.  read more »

As we've monitored the progress that wireless technology had made in discrete automation applications---and there hasn't been a lot of it---it appears that the discrete crowd is reluctant to get very far into it until the wireless standards mess that's been accummulating in process automation begins to sort itself out.

Well, ISA would like to bring you into the discusssion a bit sooner regarding wireless apps at the sensor and actuator level:  read more »

Patented technology driven by a proprietary algorithm is one of the reasons manufacturers might do business with a specific company. Manufacturers in semiconductor, data storage media, optical, solar cell and medical industries are typical users of temperature-control technology.  read more »

CNC control of machine tools made it possible to cut a variety of complex three-dimensional shapes that were previously difficult or impossible to create. That was then. This is now. Though CNC still is the main controller of choice for machining centers, other options such as PLCs, PACs and PC-based controls are drilling into the CNC's dominance.

Some proprietary control architectures are utilizing dual kernel platforms to integrate PC functions in a Windows environment, which some developers prefer because it's easier to use and program.  read more »