16 posts in “automation”
OPC UA Companion Specifications: What They Are and When They Help
Generic OPC UA models get you interoperability; companion specs get you semantics. A field guide to the standard ecosystem.
Ethernet vs Fieldbus: When Industrial Ethernet Wins and When It Doesn't
Fieldbus is not obsolete, and Ethernet is not automatically better. The engineering criteria that settle the debate.
LoRaWAN in Industrial Environments: Long-Range IoT for Factory and Field
When Wi-Fi is too short-range and cellular is too expensive, LoRaWAN fills the gap — connecting sensors across warehouses, yards, and remote sites at a fraction of the cost.
Industrial Data Historians: Choosing Between OSIsoft PI, Ignition, and InfluxDB
Every factory needs a historian — but the choice between enterprise platforms, SCADA-native solutions, and open-source time-series databases depends on your scale, budget, and team skills.
Energy Monitoring for Manufacturing: From Sub-Metering to Real-Time Dashboards
Energy is the third-largest cost in most manufacturing operations — and the least measured. A structured energy monitoring program typically reveals 15-25% savings opportunities that were invisible before.
Retrofitting Legacy PLCs with MQTT: A Practical Field Guide
You do not need to replace your Siemens S7-300 or Allen-Bradley SLC to get IIoT data. A lightweight MQTT gateway bridges legacy controllers to modern analytics without touching the control logic.
Industrial Alarm Management: Building Systems That Operators Actually Trust
Alarm floods kill more productivity than equipment failures. A structured alarm management program following ISA-18.2 turns chaos into actionable intelligence.
Industrial Monitoring Dashboards with Grafana: From Sensor to Screen
Grafana is not just for DevOps anymore. When paired with the right time-series database and industrial data connectors, it becomes the most flexible and cost-effective monitoring platform for manufacturing environments.
Containerization on the Factory Floor: Docker and K3s for Industrial Edge
Gartner predicts 80% of edge software will run in containers by 2028. Here is what containerization actually looks like on a factory floor — and the pitfalls nobody tells you about.