The results are in from Automation World magazine's 9th annual Leadership in Automation program.

Opto 22 has once again been recognized as a First Team supplier in automation for 2020. Hundreds of Automation World subscribers cast their votes during the past year which required them to write-in their ballot choices. Over two dozen categories were featured, representing a wide variety of automation technologies, software, and products used by today's manufacturing professionals across the discrete, batch, and continuous process manufacturing industries.

Topics: Energy management, PACs, Awards and recognition, mobile, IIoT, Data acquisition, groov EPIC, HMI, Automation World

When we announce a new product, we want you—our loyal customers and OptoBlog readers—to be the first to hear about it. 

And this isn't just one product. This is EPIC: the world's first Edge Programmable Industrial Control system—a brand-new I/O and control system built for the future of automation and designed for the way you work.

Topics: Energy management, Process control, Food & beverage, Discrete control, groov, Internet of Things, PLCs, Remote monitoring, Water & wastewater, IoT, Machine builder, PACs, OEM, New products, Integrators, I/O, PAC Project, Building management, Oil & gas, PAC Control, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things, Node-RED, Data acquisition, MQTT, Ignition Edge, EPIC

• How do you get machine data without interfering with the process? 
• What's an easy way to monitor temperature in a server room?
• How can you control the flow of heating and cooling water in your HVAC system?

These are the kinds of fundamental questions that come up over and over in automation applications, and our new Automation 101 video series aims to answer them. 

Topics: Energy management, Videos, Process control, Discrete control, Remote monitoring, Training, I/O, Building management, PAC Control, Data acquisition

Maybe you're monitoring temperature, or controlling a production line, or getting data from a load cell. Whatever your goal, you want to get the I/O that works best for your application. 

Or maybe you happen to notice we have more than one SNAP-AIV voltage input module and wonder how they're different. 

Here are a couple of ways to find a SNAP module with the features you need and compare similar modules.

Topics: Energy management, Process control, Discrete control, Tips, Machine builder, optonews, OEM, Integrators, I/O, Data acquisition

Hannover Messe, the world's leading industrial conference with over 6500 international exhibitors, will be held 24-28 April 2017 in Hannover, Germany. 

Join us there for a look at the present and the future of automation:

• Industry trends
• New technologies

Topics: Energy management, Process control, Remote monitoring, optonews, Events & conferences, Data acquisition, OptoNews 2017-03-29

In a recent developer survey conducted by the Eclipse IoT Working Group, IEEE IoT, and Agile IoT, 40.8% of respondents indicated that the IoT solutions they were either currently building or planning to build are IoT platforms or IoT middleware.

Almost every large IT or OT company today has some form of IoT platform or middleware.

In fact, right now there are over 150 self-described IoT platforms in the market today. Not neccessarily created equally.

Topics: Energy management, PLCs, IoT, PACs, REST, IIoT, Node-RED

Although we may think of Middle Eastern countries as being oil-rich, that description doesn't always apply. The country of Jordan, for example, has typically imported 96% of its energy from neighboring countries.

But Jordan has plenty of sun, and the government is committed to investing heavily in renewable energy. 

Topics: Energy management, Case studies, groov, Internet of Things, IoT, optonews, Integrators, mobile, IIoT, Industrial Internet of Things, OptoNews 2017-02-01

• Think about how much computers have changed in the last 30 years.
• Think about the quantity of data that enterprise data centers (EDCs) process today.
• And think about how facility management priorities have changed to meet rising energy costs.

Now imagine what needs to be done to update a 30-year-old EDC.

Topics: Energy management, Case studies, Videos, optonews, PACs, Building management, Security, REST API, RESTful server, REST, OptoNews 2016-12-14

If you're into technology, you may already have a smart thermostat or refrigerator or lights in your home. That's fun and sometimes even useful.

But what's the real value of the Internet of Things?

Topics: Energy management, Internet of Things, Remote monitoring, IoT, optonews, Events & conferences, Integrators, OptoNews 2016-10-12, IIoT

OptoForum member tohox recently posted a question about using PID control loops on a SNAP-PAC-R1 rack-mounted controller.

The issue? A really long dead loop time. 

"The time delta between the moment the strategy opens a given loop's valve [and] starts the pump+furnace and the moment a temperature increase is measured can sometimes be on the order of an hour," tohox notes.

Topics: Energy management, Tips, optonews, PACs, I/O, Building management, Modbus, PID loop control, OptoNews 2016-09-28