ISA, PMMI Head West with Fall Expos

ISA, PMMI Head West with Fall Expos

ISA— Instrumentation, Systems, and Automation Society—and the Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute will host their annual shows under western autumn skies this year.

ISA Expo 2007

On Oct. 2-4 in Houston, J.S. Arendt of ABSG Consulting, Dr. James Truchard of National Instruments, and Donald W. Monell of NASA will give keynote presentations at this year’s ISA Expo.

Arendt will speak on process safety and risk management at 12 noon on Oct. 2. Truchard will explain the need to align the education system with industry’s needs for engineers at 8:30 a.m. on Oct. 3, and Monell will describe modeling, simulation, and data architecture efforts for the next generation of human spaceflight.

Along with the requisite exhibition hall and keynote presentations, ISA will include six technology exchanges offering peer-to-peer networking for security, wireless and networking, process automation, safety, environmental and quality control, and enterprise integration.

Security Exchange

Protecting manufacturing automation and control systems computer environments is absolutely critical. The attendee, whether novice or expert, will benefit from listening to, mingling with, or learning from cybersecurity and automation-systems experts. The regulatory environment, OMAC and Microsoft-related industrial applications, OPC, and security risk analysis are also on the Security Exchange plate.

Wireless & Networking Exchange

This exchange has at least one component for all automation and control professionals. Networking and communications embodies automation, and this program runs the gamut of technologies from SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition), signal compatibility, wireless, cybersecurity, and fieldbuses to industrial Ethernet, safety buses, EDDL (Electronic Device Description Language) network selection, and ISA-100 wireless standards. Study, evaluate, argue the merits of, complain about, read up on, feel, touch, and smell every mode of industrial networking technology that exists at the Wireless & Networking Exchange.

Process Automation Exchange

Designating instruments and instrumentation systems used for measurement and control is as important now as it was in 1984 when ISA put together the standard. Of course, today the attendee must know more. The Process Automation Exchange offers resources relating to flow measurement, model predictive control, batch applications, and advanced regulatory control. Attendees can participate in or listen to panels and discussions of a digital oil patch, wireless, distillation processes, and instrumentation and valve standards.

Enterprise Integration Exchange

Opening and improving your existing operation requires integrating new hardware and software. Then, asset management can distance your outfit from the competition. This exchange will aid and educate the attendee in control system integration or in using, appraising, and hiring a control system integrator. Asset management has come out of maintenance management to leverage preventive and predictive maintenance, equipment recording and tracking, replacement parts inventory, and maintenance labor scheduling with the goal of optimizing asset use. Management and human resource topics are also here.

Safety Exchange

Safety is the opposing thumb of automation and automated processes—it separates us from the uncivilized and from lawsuits. Fire and gas explosions are the headline grabbers in the automation world, but attendees can avoid that extreme through education that includes safety-instrumented systems, hazardous location, alarms, safety integrity level (SIL) selection, and boiler controls safety themes. Participate in discussions and learn about electrical equipment for hazardous locations, instrument signals and alarms.

Environmental & Quality Control Exchange

This exchange is in fact a technology smorgasbord encompassing aspects of power, chemical and substance analysis, pharmaceutical, and water with the overriding theme and focus being quality of life. Fossil power and nuclear power plant standards are here for discussion as are standards for safe and environment-friendly power applications. Plus there are presentations on in-line sensors, continuous emissions monitoring, and building-control issues.

PACK EXPO Las Vegas

The Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute has created educational conference tracks in brand protection, converting, cost savings, e-machinery, material advances, processing, safety, sustainability, track & trace, and upgrading operations for PACK EXPO 2007, Oct. 15-17, at the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Keynote presentations will be offered by Cal Dooley, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers/Food Products Assn. (GMA/FPA), John A. Luke, Jr., chairman and CEO of MeadWestvaco Corp., and Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner of food protection at the Food and Drug Administration.

Concurrent sessions are from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Oct. 15; from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Oct. 16; and from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on Oct. 17.

Within the conference tracks, attendees can choose specific presentations that cover a broad range of issues, including sustainability enhancement, anti-counterfeiting, Six Sigma, lean changeover, traceability, and RFID technology.

Discounted registration before Sept. 25 for the conference is available online at www.packexpo.com. Registration for the exhibits is required in order to register for the conference program.

In the expo, PMMI and Dow Chemical Company will highlight more than 300 award-winning packaging designs at the Showcase of Packaging Innovations pavilion.

The Showcase of Packaging Innovations is a gallery of award-winning package designs from 13 internationally known packaging associations. Five new groups—Gravure Assn. of America, HBA Global Expo, the North American Packaging Assn., Packaging Assn. of Canada, and the Packaging and Labeling Gravure Assn.—will participate this year.

NOTEWORTHY

ISA recently published Valeriy Vyatkin’s IEC 61499 Function Blocks for Embedded and Distributed Control Systems Design, which is a practical guide for component-based development of distributed embedded and control systems as proposed by the new international standard. For more information, visit www.isa.org/books.

CRO magazine (formerly Business Ethics) named Baldor to its list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens for 2007 for the second year in a row. The list takes a systematic approach to assessing the social and environmental characteristics of a good corporate citizen in the areas of business, community, diversity, employee relations, environment, product, and corporate governance.

the technique enables parts to be formed one layer at a time, it promises new industrial applications for manufacturing parts containing myriad internal features, he said. “For example, if you are making a pump, you might have a lot of internal channels and components made of different materials,” says Shin. "Since you can deposit layer by layer, you can create very accurate geometrical shapes, actually building this part from the ground up instead of machining different components and then assembling them into a pump. We can make parts that contain a metal layer followed by a ceramic layer, and so on, which is important for creating components for the electronics industry and for other applications.”

Mergers, alliances, and acquisitions

Danaher Motion allied with Sky-Trax Inc., a developer of IPS-enabled tracking systems for warehouse vehicles, to jointly develop and market an Indoor Collision Avoidance System (ICAS) for industrial vehicles.

Pepperl+Fuchs acquired the Intrinsic Safety Instrumentation business from Cooper Crouse-Hinds.

Diversified industrial manufacturer Eaton Corp. acquired Pulizzi Engineering, manufacturer of AC power distribution, AC power sequencing, redundant power and remote-reboot power management systems.