Top 5 Control Engineering articles, July 11-17: Natural gas flowmeters, Industrie 4.0 and MES, binary-coded decimals, more

Articles about natural gas flowmeters, Industrie 4.0 and MES, binary-coded decimals and PLCs, high-performance HMIs, and cybersecurity in manufacturing were Control Engineering’s five most clicked articles from July 11-17. Miss something? You can catch up here. Also see what ranked 6-10.

By Chris Vavra July 18, 2016

The top 5 most read articles online, from Jul. 11-17 for Control Engineering covered natural gas flowmeters, Industrie 4.0 and MES, binary-coded decimals and PLCs, high-performance HMIs, and cybersecurity in manufacturing. Links to each article below. 

1. Selecting flowmeters for natural gas

Different parts of the natural gas delivery chain require different instruments, such as differential pressure (DP), ultrasonic, and Coriolis flowmeters.

2. Industrie 4.0 will have a major effect on MES, plant floor

Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are becoming less and less useful with the advent of Industrie 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) and cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) can help guide a new kind of MES onto the plant floor.

3. Binary-coded decimals and PLCs

Binary-coded decimal (BCD) is a class of binary encodings of decimal numbers where each decimal is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four or eight, which goes against the way humans compute data. This disconnect can cause problems for programmable logic controller (PLC) users.

4. Developing high-performance HMIs: Evolution, improved usability

This two-part series examines the development of high-performance human-machine interface (HMI) methodology. Part 1 covers HMI evolution, security, improving usability, and consistent use of color.

5. Cybersecurity in manufacturing: How much is needed?

The cybersecurity situation for manufacturing is changing as the scale of attacks on the manufacturing sector and proportional loss to businesses has demonstrated the necessity of secure integrated control systems.

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on controleng.com, July 11-17, for articles published within the last two months.  

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


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