By the Numbers

Staff -- Control Engineering, 8/1/2005

4 automakers lead the most fuel-efficient list (eight EPA size classes) as of July 12 at www.fueleconomy.gov. They are BMW (Mini Cooper), Honda, Toyota, and Volkswagen. Oak Ridge National Laboratory www.fueleconomy.gov

23 RFID products and services categories listed at CE SupplierSearch, powered by Kellysearch, as of July, 2005. Leading categories cover products, systems, readers, consultants, and starter kits. See also the Control Engineering cover story, August 2005 issue, on RFID. www.cesuppliersearch.com

6 July, 2005, is the date that American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Standards Press of China (SPC, the publishing division of the national standards body, the Standardization Administration of the People's Republic of China), signed a reciprocal agreement to distribute each others' standards. Nearly 1,000 U.S. businesses, professional societies and trade associations, standards developers, government agencies, institutes, and consumer and labor interests, develop voluntary national consensus standards through ANSI. There are more than 11,500 American National Standards. www.ansi.org

32.6% of proximity sensors are used for determining liquid fill-level, the second most common application, according to subscribers responding to a Control Engineering/Reed Research Group sensor survey. To find out the highest-ranking application (and other uses), turn to "Product Research," in this issue. www.controleng.com/archive

2 "Implementation Chronicles" debuted at www.controleng.com in July. Baton Rouge Wastewater pump station SCADA system implementation blog began July 13; the Biopharmaceutical filtration modules project blog began July 14. System integrators update blogs weekly until project completion. www.controleng.com/chronicles

23,000 mph is how fast the 820-lb Deep Impact probe was traveling when it slammed into the nucleus of comet Tempel 1 on July 4. The flyby spacecraft observed a plume of talcum-power sized dust excavated from the comet's surface; three cameras took approximately 4,500 images during the encounter. Surface details of 4-meters in diameter are nearly a factor of 10 better than any previous comet mission. NASA www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/main/index.html

$1.06 billion of estimated revenue in 2004 for global manufacturing execution systems (MES) represented a 50% increase since 2001, according to a new report by AMR Research. The study, "MES Market Rides Perfect Storm Through $1B Barrier," found that compliance initiatives and ERP maturity are the two major drivers that reportedly combined to create a perfect environment for MES market expansion. Major automation vendors are among those expected to take advantage of the trend. www.amrresearch.com

1,100 system integrators are in Control Engineering's Automation Integrator Guide at www.controleng.com/integrators Control Engineering www.controleng.com/integrators

$10 billion in lost production to the U.S. petrochemical industry results from unexpected disruptions, costing 3-8% of capacity, according to the Abnormal Situation Management Consortium (a research and development consortium of 11 companies and universities concerned about the negative effects of industrial plant incidents); 42% of abnormal situations studied among member companies could be attributed to people and work context factors. The greatest contributors to this figure were inadequate procedures or lack thereof, inadequate or incorrect actions, or failure to follow instructions or proper procedures. www.asmconsortium.com