Citect has been awarded a contract worth more than AUD$3 million to upgrade the baggage-handling control system at Sydney airport's international terminal.

Two of the most common challenges facing process manufacturing professionals are keeping up with/applying technology and quantifying returns on capital before investing in it. Innovative, proven technologies like Foundation fieldbus can revolutionise manufacturing economics.

Industrial maintenance practitioners can enhance their predictive maintenance knowledge with a program of vibration analysis training courses being offered by industrial automation group Rockwell Automation Australia.

SSA GT has acquired 100% ownership of Infinium Software, which provides web-integrated enterprise business applications optimised for the IBM eServer iSeries.

Amcor has moved to consolidate its northern hemisphere closures manufacturing operations, by announcing the sale of its 65% stake of Amcor White Cap LLC for AU$66 million.

Sandvik Steel has developed a production method for internally, longitudinally finned, cold finished tubes for use as pyrolysis tubing in the demanding environment of ethylene furnaces.

Recent economic and tragic events have not had a major impact on business and employment in Australia and a forecast of steady growth is expected in the next two years, according to research released by recruitment firm Hamilton James & Bruce.

Three of Australia's leading galvanizing contractors have been recognised in the annual Sorel Awards sponsored by Pasminco Metals.

Siemens A&D has delivered its one-millionth Simatic HMI system to Rolls-Royce plc at the SPS/IPC/Drives Show 2002 in Nuremberg, Germany.

Japan's electronics maker Sony will invest AU$148 million in the construction of a liquid crystal display (LCD) plant in China, allowing the company to produce LCDs in China for the first time. The plant in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, will produce high-temperature polysilicon LCDs for digital, still and video cameras and was expected to start operating by the end of March 2004.

A leading New Zealand's mechanical design company has designed a specialised production line machine for a manufacturing plant in Mount Wellington Auckland. The aptly named 'snapper' was developed to help fulfil a large order for TCXO's (Temperature Compensated Crystal Oscillators), which are an essential component of many radio, mobile and GPS technologies.

The Human-Machine Interface (HMI) market, which totalled $US414 million in 2001, will hit nearly $US590 million in 2006, outperforming the industrial automation market and growing at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7.3 per cent over the next five years, according to a recent ARC Advisory Group study.

Emerson Process Management has won the initial contract from a South African chemical and engineering conglomerate for a multi-million dollar gas conversion project.

The worldwide market for industrial Ethernet devices is expected to grow at a Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 84.1 per cent over the next five years. The market was 286.8 thousand nodes in 2002 and is forecasted to be over 6.06 million nodes in 2007, according to a recent ARC Advisory Group study.

IMO Controls International, a member of the HPM group of companies, has signed a deal to become sole distributor of the Lovato Electric product range across Australia and New Zealand.