In April's Control: Remote Access Goes Mainstream. Find out why it's one of the fastest-growing and accepted technologies to hit the process control industries; plus, how an upstate New York brewer saves $230,000 a year with a flow controls upgrade; what's new in SCADA; and the story of Southern States Chemical's new sulphuric acid plant, built with a combination of recycled equipment and the latest in processing technology. Also, don't miss this month's Control Talk, featuring Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner's column "New Paradigms for Lab Control Systems."

Control's March issue is all about road maps. Our cover story "The Control Room of the Future - Smarter Reality" shows readers how to navigate through all the glitz and shiny new tools and applications to get to the best, most practical and functional 21st-century control room for their needs. Then we explore the latest navigational report from those on the search for the asset management Holy Grail of integrated production and maintenance, plus a close-up of how GlaxoSmithKline moved along the path via smart, documenting calibrators. Also, this month's Control Talk, featuring Greg McMillan and Stan Weiner, is entitled, "Going with the Flow." Read it now.

The ISA Edmonton Section has just finished hosting the 9th annual Oil Sands Automation conference in Fort McMurray and as the tag line on the program states – still the only oil sands focused conference hosted in the oil sands. The event continues to grow passing the century mark in attendance and this year there was greater participation both as speakers and participants from the SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) companies, which is the fastest growing part of this industry.

While in Austin recently for some meetings at the Fieldbus Foundation I read a copy of the Wall Street Journal about the state of technology workers in the United States. The Population Reference Bureau estimates that approximately 7.6 million workers in the US work in technology fields and the low range is only 5 million. This is less than 5% of the work force. The problem would be MUCH worse if not for immigration as the percentage of this labour force that was born outside the country has doubled from 10 to 20% since 1990.

I recently read in Power Magazine (powermag.com) that EPRI is launching the Security and Privacy Initiative, a collaborative effort to investigate cyber security standards, business processes, and technologies to protect the electric grid.

Is the world ready for a “self-help” supplier of industrial networking tools and equipment? The people at Cobaltprocess (www.cobaltprocess.com) in the Northwest USA certainly hope so.

Because off-line tools by their nature are unable to report back to the appropriate person when something happens the majority of FF Power Supply manufacturers either already offer or I am confident are working on developing on-line network diagnostic modules to continually monitor and report to a central system as soon as something happens so appropriate action can be taken.

The original network analysis tool was the National Instruments Bus Monitor, developed at approximately the same time as Foundation Fieldbus was being introduced. This tool was designed to monitor the data traffic on fieldbus networks. It was not until Relcom introduced the FBT-3 that a physical layer troubleshooting tool specific for Fieldbus was available. Prior to the FBT-3 the only options were multimeter and oscilloscope, with no way of knowing which devices were communicating when a signal trace went by.

Deadlines for the ISA Communications Division two Spring Symposia are quickly approaching.
The first event this April in Troy (Detroit) Michigan is a joint offering with the ISA100 WG16 committee that will be two half-days focused on Wireless applications in the Factory environment. Key topics at this event include: Wireless for Factory Automation User Requirements, Secure Wireless Sensor Networks,
IEEE P1451.1.4 and Smart RFID use for Factory Automation, and Emerging Wireless Technologies for Factory Automation.

Just like we tend to take the Ethernet chipset in our computer for granted, most End Users are likely unaware that every Foundation Fieldbus H1 device has a similar chipset called the H1 Stack in it. Like the FF Function Blocks, the stack must also be tested for compliance BEFORE the device can be submitted to the Fieldbus Foundation for its 'check mark.' Because the Foundation now tests devices and host systems, every field device and H1 interface card therefore requires a tested and approved stack.