Off site—so you don’t have to be

A trip off-site or out of town on business can be a rare treat, an enjoyable adventure, or a grind that takes you away from your real work. Yes, for those who do it occasionally, it’s a nice chance to learn something new. But I suspect we all know someone who travels almost weekly. Day trips on a commuter plane to another plant (with hours in rental cars and airports) can leave many people longing for holographic conference technology. ‘Help me, Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.’

Control Engineering goes where you do when you can get away to learn: into the plants, offices and minds of engineers, manufacturers and product innovators—and we use the latest technology when we can. Our Implementation Chronicles blog delivers weekly dispatches on the progress and setbacks of a wastewater treatment plant project from the system integrator involved. Process control editor Dick Phelps traveled to Louisiana to see Honeywell’s Geismar plant, and that helped in writing last month’s cover story.

More recently, CE editors have been sorting facts from fantasy and gathering the seeds of solutions at spring tradeshows and conferences. Executive editor Frank Bartos and I traveled to Hannover Fair to ferret out automation innovation from Germany and around the world—then viewed some state-of-the-art technology and assembly processes at B&R Industrial Automation’s manufacturing plant and headquarters near Salzburg, Austria.

Editor Vance VanDoren took me to the annual Control System Integrators Association (CSIA) conference, where I talked with some of the most forward-thinking integrators around about the projects they’re doing. Editor in chief Mark Hoske toured an SEW-Eurodrive plant, and, the next morning, moderated a panel on advanced manufacturing at the AM Expo in Greenville, SC. Then, thanks to great technology and high-speed connections, he moderated a Webcast on the new UL508A standard in the afternoon.

All this feeds our need for information. On your behalf, we gladly navigate airport security, tour plants, walk miles of exhibits, and interview myriad sources to fill the ‘pages’ of Control Engineering , both actual and virtual, with useful information. We’re off site and on the move, so you don’t have to be.

Renee Robbins, Editorial Director

renee.robbins@reedbusiness.com

Additional Reading

Security—the latest, high-tech‘layered look’

Cover Story: Measure More…Without Wires

Hannover Fair coverage

CSIA-related coverage

What’s next in advanced manufacturing?

Learn how UL508A influences how control panels are designed

SEW Eurodrive plant tour

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