"How effective is your maintenance strategy?" is a question often posed to engineers and one which is mostly very difficult to answer with any degree of certainty. It's a critical consideration: the wrong decision can cause costly mistakes

It is widely acknowledged that effective maintenance strategies and practices have a direct impact on process efficiency and productivity and therefore on bottom line profitability. Yet maintenance is still often seen as a cost, rather than an investment

Industrial drives technology in Australia and New Zealand sits on the threshold of major change as old barriers to progress are broken down by new technologies, spurred on by unstoppable demands of greater workplace safety and efficiency

In Australia and many other parts of the world, global competition, mergers and acquisitions and advances in pulping, production and process technology are placing pressure on operating procedures and profit margins in the pulp and paper industry

A new breed of vision system has arrived - Vision Appliances. Powerful and compact, yet friendly, cost effective and easy-to-use, they have been designed for production personnel who are busy looking after their day to day production processes

In many ways, the art of winemaking has changed little over the centuries. Escalating consumer demand means that some wines are now produced by the tank-load. To keep up, winemakers are turning to technology to streamline the process

Although embedded systems come in many shapes and sizes, we can divide all systems into three main categories: Linux, Windows CE, and customised or proprietary systems. This article looks at the advantages of Linux as an embedded operating system (EOS)

Approval for your next automation project depends not just on its technical merits, it also has to pay for itself. There is a range of financial criteria to consider once you have put the finishing touches on the engineering part of your proposal

Decentralised motor control architectures leverage the benefits of distributed intelligence and provide ultimate flexibility. Darren Klonowski, applications engineer at SEW-Eurodrive, explores the options

'Seamless connectivity' is undoubtedly one of the catch-cries of the Australian automation industry today. It brings to mind 'integrated communications', 'real-time data', 'e-manufacturing' and 'internet-enabled control'

When considering the migration of a directly linked device to the world of networked devices, it is important to understand the context of the connection. This article discusses the barriers one might encounter

What's New in Process Technology magazine asked some of the industry's leading figures, both suppliers and end users, to look into our crystal ball and predict what the future will bring

A recent installation at BYK-Chemie in Wesel demonstrates how a mass flowmeter's design impacts the accuracy of the measurement for products with different viscosities.

When developing embedded control systems, designers are being squeezed by two trends. The 'divide and conquer' strategy for developing these complex systems means coordinating the resources of people with expertise in a wide range of disciplines

The debate about PLC versus PC had been going on for a while when a new name appeared, the PAC (programmable automation controller). PAC promises to bring the best of both worlds, the functionality of the PC and the reliability of the PLC