Top 5 Control Engineering articles, December 9 to January 8: PID loop tuning advice, control engineers and management, System Integrators of the Year, more

Articles about learning PID loop turning from an expert, 7 things control engineers should know about management, the 2015 System Integrators of the Year, support-focused enterprise controls, and PLC and DCS programming were Control Engineering’s five most clicked articles from December 9 to January 8.

By Chris Vavra January 8, 2015

Control Engineering Top 5 most read articles online, for Dec. 9-Jan. 8 covered learning PID loop turning from an expert, 7 things control engineers should know about management, the 2015 System Integrators of the Year, support-focused enterprise controls, and PLC and DCS programming. Link to each article below.

1. Learning PID loop tuning from an expert

Hands-on experience helps accelerate the PID learning curve. 

2. 7 things control engineers should know about management

How to communicate effectively with management and accelerate your career: Engineers should know these 7 things about management today. Don’t wait for others to delegate the needed resources or complain that they haven’t. 

3. 2015 System Integrators of the Year

Maverick, Polytron and Malisko Engineering help lead clients into the new world of automation. CFE Media’s judges have again chosen three companies to receive the 2015 System Integrator of the Year award in three categories: more than $17 million in annual revenue, $10 million to $17 million annual revenue, and up to $10 million annual revenue. 

4. Support-focused enterprise controls: Object detection

The ability to sense objects and trigger an application is the most overlooked fundamental of control design. Two common forms of object detection are presence detection and movement detection. 

5. Improve PLC and DCS programming with a mental model

Develop a mental model to address real-time programming, which differs from web development or classical programming. Base real-time programmable logic controller (PLC) and distributed control system (DCS) programs on models of functional programming, encapsulation, hierarchy decomposition, and petri nets. Do not accept unstructured and poorly designed PLC and DCS code. 

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on controleng.com, December 9 to January 8, for articles published within the last two months.

– Chris Vavra, production editor, CFE Media, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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Author Bio: Chris Vavra is web content manager for CFE Media and Technology.