April 2002
X-Change 2002 - a resounding success with industry professionals - Over 250 SA manufacturing and industrial automation professionals and overseas speakers attended Futuristix-Wonderware's 10th User Conference at Sun City from 10th to 13th March.
The conference played host to 10 international speakers and allowed delegates a choice of over 50 workshops and 30 exhibitor stands to review.
As in 2001, Microsoft SA co-hosted the conference and showed how new offerings from Microsoft addressed supply chain issues within the manufacturing industry. Microsoft also showed how industrial users can benefit from technologies such as MS WINDOWS XP and .NET SERVERS as well as MS SHAREPOINT, which, with the increasing web-enablement of manufacturing solutions, allows users to design information portals that best suit their needs. Various scenarios of portal server development within a manufacturing plant were also covered including ASP model, a global hosting model, as well as a portal server within a plant infrastructure. Other topics of note included MS SQL Server 200 as well as MICROSOFT.NET and BIZTALK and how the latter apply to integrating sets of applications in the manufacturing industry.
Mike le Plastrier - Futuristix
Regular Features
Clipboard
Forum
News and products
HellermannTyton Mindbender
Energy Efficiency, Supply and Management
What went wrong in California?
E Hansen (Consultant) ,
Avoiding the obvious pitfalls as the temperature rises
Innovative substation design - the bay controller concept
D Proudfoot (Siemens Power Transmission and Distribution, Power Automation) ,
Control and automation move into industrial substations
PLCs, SCADA and Industrial Communications
SCADA's SCADA Part 1 Staying in business
Mike le Plastrier (Futuristix) ,
Keeping an eye on the gatekeeper
Protection
High speed wire drawing machine running above base speed with the use of ac vector drives
M C Southall (Control Techniques) ,
Machine performance is optimised by drive parameters
Valves and Actuators
Diaphragm valves for difficult applications
V MacFadyen (Burkert Contromatic) ,
Separating the fluid from the actuator ensures a reliable valve
