Intelligent software is becoming increasingly important for increasing productivity in manufacturing plants.

Apex Automation and Robotics, located in the north-western suburbs of Sydney, designs and builds factory automation machinery and robotic systems - from mechanical and electrical design, through to construction and commissioning. Recently, Apex was commissioned to develop an ‘automatic machining centre’ (AMC) for polymer foam panels.

Machine vision is a branch of engineering that uses cameras in the context of process control. Images are collected and analysed and the data extracted used for controlling an automated process or action.

Guidelines on PPE to be worn by electrical workers are detailed in AS/NZS 4863:2011.

What drives your organisation’s training decisions? Is it the desire to deliver genuine outcomes such as increased skills and underpinning knowledge to realise performance advantages - or merely to furnish staff with a qualification?

In today’s highly automated machines, fieldbus valve manifolds are replacing conventional hard-wired solutions. They more easily perform vital functions by integrating communication interfaces to pneumatic valve manifolds with I/O capabilities.

For the development of a quasilinear transport system with 3D tracks, Technische Universitaet Braunschweig (TU-BS) decided to include stator elements based on Somaloy technology. The research has resulted in a much more efficient solution for production line transport.

Advanced diagnostics embedded in a pressure transmitter can proactively detect abnormal process conditions.

Conventionally, remote unmanned facility monitoring systems were constrained by the limitations of the long-range communication interfaces available to the system integrators. The advent of advanced cellular communications technology has freed system integrators from these limitations and unleashed new potential in remote monitoring systems.

Hepburn Wind is Australia’s first community-owned wind farm and is located at Leonards Hill, 10 kilometres south of Daylesford in central Victoria. The facility, which consists of two REpower MM82 2.05 MW wind turbines, provides a total capacity of 4 MW of power and will produce enough electricity for 2300 homes. This provides enough renewable electricity for almost all of the households in Daylesford and Hepburn Springs.

The pitch control of wind turbines is based today on PD or PID controllers. Due to the nonlinear behaviour of the turbines, the design of these controllers is usually a very time-consuming affair. The use of fuzzy controllers in future promises a faster and more efficient procedure.

Steve Mackay of IDC Technologies reflects on what it means to have, and to be, a good mentor.

Optimising the wastewater treatment process using analytical sensors with automated cleaning is a cost-effective way to reduce maintenance, improve efficiency and ensure measurement accuracy.

Extremely high furnace temperatures and increasing water leakage are the main causes of the eruptions in electric submerged arc furnaces. Using a gas analyser to detect small water leaks has helped improve safety at TEMCO's Tasmanian manganese ferroalloy plant.

By now, Stuxnet has become well known as the computer malware worm that allegedly infected Iranian organisations in 2010, most notably those plants alleged to be used for uranium enrichment. But regardless of its original purpose, Stuxnet now proves that insufficient IT security opens automation networks to a clear and present threat.