A quarrying company based in Zambia, Central Africa, contacted Colin Bracken, Sykes group regional manager, Africa, to provide it with a complete solution to its pit dewatering problems.

Australian carpet manufacturer Godfrey Hirst has optimised its Geelong production facility with an environment-friendly manufacturing solution, founded on a purpose-built compressed-air system from Champion Compressors.

When Coopers Brewery relocated from Leabrook to Regency Park in 2001, the company took the opportunity to expand its capacity by commissioning an entirely new brew house. International brew house designers Briggs of Burton proposed linking all measuring points with a Profibus communications system, based on its outstanding success in other brew houses worldwide.

Increasing automation in mechanical engineering means that the demands on machine safety are also rising. Aspects of process safety, availability and cost-effectiveness must all be reconciled. Safety guards or gates ensure that operating personnel are protected against flying metal swarf or hazardous movements on plant and machinery. Their position can be monitored by a wide range of safety switches available on the market, which take into account not only safety-related aspects but economic considerations too. The switch you use will depend partly on the machine and partly on the safety-related requirements.

Aircraft wings that redirect air to waggle sideways could reduce airline fuel bills by 20%, according to research in the United Kingdom.

As well as being a source of information, the internet allows people to interact on a social level. Social internet-based environments have many powerful applications that can be utilised to service equipment in the industrial sector.

What kind of controller is best for your application? Is it a PLC? Perhaps you should use a PAC? Maybe a PAD? When it comes down to it, the name is not that important. What is important is developing a clear understanding of your needs and then finding the controller that best targets them.

Finding specialised qualified staff and the need for greater efficiency in an increasingly competitive marketplace motivated Peter Harrison, the General Manager of Melbourne-based Hilustre Coatings Pty Ltd, to investigate the possibility of using a robot at the company’s spray painting facility.

In 2006, Sykes Group sold a number of QSPCP200 (Quiet Solution) pumps to a South Australian government department. The pumps have been commissioned to take water from one of the Murray River tributaries and discharge it onto the dry flood planes. The result is, its not only saving the old river red gums but bringing life back to trees.

Sykes Group was recently approached by a mine in Central Queensland to supply a pump for a duty of 200 L/s at 90 m head in an area that is inaccessible in wet weather and can also flood.

Australian milk processor Murray Goulburn (MGC) has reduced its carbon footprint by 35% after the implementation of CompAirs recommendations in its demand side audit of the plants air system. The company has saved over AU$147,000 in energy and maintenance costs and cut carbon emissions by more than 1900 t at its Leongatha plant in Victoria after just five months.

SMC Pneumatics has developed an Energy Saving Software Package which is designed to assist industry calculate the cost of compressed air and to assess cost savings associated with the implementation of proposed energy-reduction strategies.

In Part 1 of this article we looked generally at the types of innovations that have been used to make use of ethernet in process plants and factory automation. This month we look at some of the most well-known implementations.

Every mining operation has budgets, production targets, business goals and a sustainability plan, but achieving budgets and business goals requires the efficient use of all internal resources, such as people, plant, raw materials, maintenance, reagents and procedures.

In a black and white world, using photoelectric sensors would be very straightforward. In the real world, things are not so simple. In their technicolour lives, photoelectric sensors are often utilised to sort coloured products, identify coded markings and confirm the presence of an adhesive or date codes on a package.