Top 5 Control Engineering articles September 11-17: Control system programming, safety compliance, Industrie 4.0 integration, more

Articles about control system programming, safety compliance, Industrie 4.0 integration, ladder logic, and PID challenges and benefits were Control Engineering’s five most clicked articles from September 11-17. Miss something? You can catch up here.

By Chris Vavra September 18, 2017

The top 5 most read articles online, from Sept. 11-17 for Control Engineering, covered control system programming, safety compliance, Industrie 4.0 integration, ladder logic, and PID challenges and benefits. Links to each article below.

1. Ten control system programming best practices

Best practices for programmers include defining their structure, knowing the system resources and tools, consistency, and keeping track of changes during a project.

2. Safety compliance and changing industry practices

To minimize worker injuries and incidents, look at existing workflows to assess the degree of risk and identify areas of concern. Then form specific and targeted interventions that can address these gaps.

3. An integrated network for Industrie 4.0

System integration via the cloud makes networking at the production level easy and secure by vertically integrating management and systems as well as providing a security function for Industrie 4.0.

4. Ladder Logic: Auto cycles and safety routines

The auto cycle command in ladder logic allows the auto cycle to start in auto mode if no faults are present and for the cycle to stop only when the auto sequence has not been started.

5. To PID or not to PID

The venerable proportional-integral-derivative (PID) algorithm can solve a variety of feedback control problems, but not all.

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on controleng.com, September 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.