Friday, October 14, 2005

Manufacturing network diagnostics As the line between engineering and information technology (IT) becomes ever more blurred, OSIsoft has released a software diagnostic product that monitors manufacturing networks, identifies hot spots and drills down into the history behind the events. This capability identifies and resolves events that were previously difficult or time-consuming to diagnose, such as containing viruses and pinpointing network failures. 10:44:58 AM    comment []

In another twist of the new fieldbus wars, Honeywell has joined the Field Device Tool (FDT) Group, a collaboration of international automation companies that supports the advancement of FDT and Device Tool Management (DTM) technology. The company is still supporting DDL (device description language) for Foundation Fieldbus and HART. Some think that the enhanced version of DDL--Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) is competitive to FDT, while others contend that the two are compatible with FDT being a technology that promotes intercommunication of devices to different fieldbuses. 9:50:57 AM    comment []

One of the by-plays between Cognex and DVT, when DVT was an independent company, was the competition to get into the Rockwell Automation partner program. Interesting news that Cognex has just signed leading Rockwell distributor McNaughton-McKay (known colloquially in the trade as "Mac and Mac") as an Automation Solution Provider. 9:18:05 AM    comment []