Houston, Tex.— The biggest players in control and automation gathered with the biggest names in software at ISA Expo/98 on Oct. 19-22 to showcase thousands of innovations to help manufacturers in the eternal quest to do more with less.

• Fresh from its parent's initial moves to buy Elsag Bailey Process Automation N.V., ABB (Rochester, N.Y.) showed a portfolio led by its Advant OCS (open control system). This productivity solution includes ABB's Advant Enterprise Historian, which incorporates a distributed architecture for retrieving data from different systems, plants, and regions worldwide. The display component allows historical data viewing with web-based tools.

ABB also demonstrated: SattLine, its object-oriented, Microsoft Windows NT-based control system for smaller continuous and batch processes; SattCon 200, a modular, PLC-based control system with distributed I/O capabilities; AdvaBatch, a scalable, NT-based batch processor; and Advant Intelligent Enterprise Manager, which uses a graphical, object-oriented environment and intelligent agents to automate plant tasks and features one standard procedure for developing training models.

For more information, visit www.controleng.com/info.