Live from ABB Automation and Power World 2015

The editors of Control and Control Design were on hand at the ABB Automation & Power World Conference March 2-5 in Houston. From IoT and cybersecurity to robotics and managing change, here's the best conference content as they reported live during the four day event. If you were there, you can review all the highlights in this convenient eBook. If you weren't, get the eBook now-it's almost as good as being there! Get the e-Book.

Lessons From a Landing on the Hudson River

"How often are we called upon to demonstrate duty, capacity, integrity, courage as if lives depended on it? More often than we realize," said Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger. Results matter, but also how they're obtained. Ego can be a powerful driving force, but "unchecked, it can be your worst enemy," he continued. Read more >>

Seek Advantage in Workforce Transitions

Four experts from ABB and its Baldor Electric Co. division showed how they're taking on these challenges, and finding useful solutions and ways to improve their workforces despite these difficult environments. Read more >>

Manage Change Before It Manages You

Change in business is constant and accelerating. Yet it is not change, but our ability to navigate change, that represents the biggest challenge facing business today, according to Kathy Biermann, leadership and professional manager at Ford Motor Company.  Read more >>

State Logic to Aid Process Safety

ABB is participating in the ISA106 committee's efforts to go beyond layers of protection, and integrate procedural safety methods into process control applications. Instead of merely dealing with protective layers, state-based control includes the start-up, routine operations and shutdown of a process application. Read more >>

Measure Multiphase Flows Sans Radiation

A new isokinetic sampling flowmeter from ABB simplifies continuous monitoring of oil, gas and water mixtures. Continuous monitoring can allow users to verify well operation, monitor and optimize production, allocate flows from different wells to different owners, and test wells to identify their production potential. Read more >>

Say good-bye to expensive manual machine loading and unloading in harsh environments. Say hello to robotics. Robots are designed to help reduce production costs, increase flexibility and improve production. "For machine tending, automation is the key in this industry," said ABB's Allen He. Read more >>

Predicting the Future of Cybersecurity

"If we don't do cybersecurity right with the Internet of Things," warned Tim Rains, chief security advisor, Cybersecurity & Data Protection Group, at Microsoft, "the next generation will have a bunch of untrustworthy devices. The legacy is not going to be smooth." Read more >>

North America Is Focus of ABB Measurement Investments

In little more than a year, ABB's Measurement & Analytics business has broken ground on five major expansions or new facilities in North America as well as acquiring Spirit IT, a Dutch specialist in liquid flow computers and custody transfer solutions. Read more >>

System 800xA (eXtended Automation) is one of these universally helpful tools; and its new version 6 (v6) is continuing this tradition by helping users with many new and improved features via new avenues to help people, equipment and systems cooperate more effectively. Read more >>

Integrating Automation and Power with IEC 61850

Trends toward integrating electrical, safety and substation automation systems are affecting how we engineer process automation systems and operate process plants. Read more >>

Analyzers Promise to Ease Compliance with EPA Emissions Rules

One existing and one emerging technology promise to help cut emissions more simply, more reliably and with less maintenance. Read more >>

A fundamental responsibility for any operator is identifying whether a process is OK. And making that determination should take no longer than 4 seconds. "To be able to do that in 4 seconds, an operator needs a display that gives them that information," said David A. Strobhar. Read more >>

The ABB of today is heavily focused on "the build phase" of its customers' value chains, Spiesshofer said. In the future, the company plans to contribute more to its customers' planning and design efforts, with technical consulting and new software. Read more >>

The effect of falling oil prices was the theme in today's forum . "Oil prices have dropped 50% in the past six months," said John Dempsey. "Budgets have been cut 15-30%. Contractor backlogs have been high but will start to fall. How can we reduce costs so projects can continue?" Read more >>

How can chattering equipment and their newly generated data help companies run efficiently and profitably? Norm Judah, CTO of Microsoft Services, addressed this question in his keynote presentation "Business Transformation with the Internet of Things." Read more >>

Mine Merges Electrical, Process Controls

Leandro Monaco reported in his presentation "Energy Efficiency in a Large-Scale Facility: The Electrical System Perspective," that electrical and process controls are coming together in some big applications, and achieving unprecedented joint performance gains and benefits. Read more >>

“It’s not only having a certified system,” said Luis Duran, product marketing manager, safety systems, ABB, today at ABB Automation & Power World in Houston. “As the system ages for 10 or 15 years, there are things to be done, and more to be done on the operational side.” Read more >>

Virtualization Pays Off for Argentine Refiner

"Our refinery has the highest conversion capacity in the country," explained Gaston Llamas, systems engineer, control & optimization, at YPF, during his presentation today at ABB Automation & Power World in Houston. Read more >>