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Thursday, June 19, 2008 |
While I was waiting for my plane at Phoenix Sky Harbor airport yesterday, the voices of CNN for airports were thrust upon me. It's bad enough to get the argument over whether the oil companies should get more goodies thrown their way or not repeated endlessly--I had to listen to some idiot on-the-spot weather/news person interviewing people along the Mississippi (or somewhere in the flooded Midwest). OK, the interview with the little kid filling sandbags was cute (sort of pointed out that this guy would be serving humanity better by pitching his mike into the river and helping), but when he started interviewing a Guardsman and (after misidentifying him as Reserve) asked him to compare filling sandbags to avert a flood to serving in Iraq that was over the top. I know that CNN and weather people desperately want a disaster, but this is way too much. People keep saying things like "this was like a battle zone" but have they ever been in one with bullets whistling close by? I hate TV news. They are even worse than newspapers. To paraphrase the folk song, âo[ogonek]Where have all the journalists gone, long time passing?âo[caron]
8:38:54 PM 
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SAP, the enterprise resource planning software developer, has been long rumored to be interested in establishing a direct presence on the factory floor. So, despite the many partnerships that it has with MES players, it has decided to act. It will be acquiring Visiprise Inc., a privately-held, solution provider. SAP says that this will enable it to deliver on its "Perfect Plant" strategy to bring together core SAP solutions with the software, hardware and services offerings of ecosystem partners.
A spokesman told AW Managing Editor Wes Iversen that this should not impact its many partnerships with companies it is now competing with including GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Wonderware. You can see Wes's indepth news item here.
8:36:00 PM
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Interesting to write about this at the same time as Honeywell User Group. Harry Sim was vice president of marketing for Honeywell Process until about 18 months ago when he left to head Cypress Systems Corp., a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. We recently talked abut a new product that Cypress has announced, then I saw a demonstration this week. This is a really cool product. It seems so simple, even a little bit Rube Goldberg, but this is a big step toward wireless sensor network implementations in manufacturing.
What he has is a non-invasive wireless gauge reading solutions. Harry used his experience in process control and combined with all the Cypress Semiconductor silicon intellectual property to solve what should be an obvious information problem. Many older plants have hundreds of manual dial gauges that measure pressure, temperature, flow or other parameters. How can this information be moved into the digital age and help alleviate operator overload necessitated by going around the plant reading these gauges? Well, by combining a vision-type CCD chip with advanced algorithms and wireless networking circuitry, and a unique little mounting collar, that's how. The device slips over the face of a gauge and reads it, translating the information from analog visual data to electronic data that can be transmitted to the appropriate computer.
The devices transmit readings wirelessly to the Cypress Systems Receiver/Server, which provides real-time graphing and alerts and can also interface with existing automation systems via OPC, SECS/GEM, or BACNet protocols. The solution is targeted at legacy production plants such as those for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food and beverages and more.
Interesting to write about this at the same time as Honeywell User Group. Harry Sim was vice president of marketing for Honeywell Process until about 18 months ago when he left to head Cypress Systems Corp., a subsidiary of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. We recently talked abut a new product that Cypress has announced, then I saw a demonstration this week. This is a really cool product. It seems so simple, even a little bit Rube Goldberg, but this is a big step toward wireless sensor network implementations in manufacturing.
What he has is a non-invasive wireless gauge reading solutions. Harry used his experience in process control and combined with all the Cypress Semiconductor silicon intellectual property to solve what should be an obvious information problem. Many older plants have hundreds of manual dial gauges that measure pressure, temperature, flow or other parameters. How can this information be moved into the digital age and help alleviate operator overload necessitated by going around the plant reading these gauges? Well, by combining a vision-type CCD chip with advanced algorithms and wireless networking circuitry, and a unique little mounting collar, that's how. The device slips over the face of a gauge and reads it, translating the information from analog visual data to electronic data that can be transmitted to the appropriate computer.
The devices transmit readings wirelessly to the Cypress Systems Receiver/Server, which provides real-time graphing and alerts and can also interface with existing automation systems via OPC, SECS/GEM, or BACNet protocols. The solution is targeted at legacy production plants such as those for semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, food and beverages and more.
8:33:54 PM
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© Copyright 2008 Gary Mintchell.
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