The White House has announced that President Barack Obama will join German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Hannover, Germany at Hannover Messe to participate in the worldβs largest trade show for industrial technology. President Obama will appear at the fairβs official opening ceremony on Sunday, April 24, 2016, and the traditional opening tour with Chancellor Merkel […]
Deutsche Messe calls for Hermes Award 2016 nominations
Presented every year by Deutsche Messe, the Hermes Award is one of the world’s most important prizes in the world of industry. The award is given in honor of a technologically innovative product making its debut at Hannover Messe. Products entered for the award must have undergone industrial trials and/or already be used in industrial […]
New Aventics President for the Americas is named
ΊΪΑΟ³ΤΉΟ components and systems manufacturer Aventics Corp. has announced the appointment of Rudi Coetzee as President, Americas for the company. After having completed his studies in Physical Metallurgy in South Africa, CoetzeeΒ started his professional career as a Chief Research Technician at MINTEK, a leading provider of minerals processing and metallurgical engineering products, before he joined […]
Motion Industries launches online pneumatics catalog
Distributor Motion Industries has launched its first online ΊΪΑΟ³ΤΉΟs Catalog. With the needs of its customer base in mind, Motion created the catalog by starting with its broad pneumatic product offering and narrowing it down to more than 1,800 commonly ordered items organized into 13 subcategories. That way, the company says, customers can easily and […]
NFPA Conference coming to Texas’ Hill Country
The NFPA Annual Conference, perhaps the best networking event in the fluid power industry, is coming to San Antonio’s La Cantera resort in March, with a great lineup.
Compressed air fail: Expensive exercise
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge A PVC window components manufacturer upgraded their compressed air system a few years ago by adding a VSD controlled compressor. To provide backup capability, they kept their old fixed speed compressor. Measurement and verification of the new installation showed that the company initially gained energy savings of […]
CCEFP, industry players brainstorm on human scale fluid power
Last week, 45 representatives from fluid power manufacturers, researchers, universities and industry associations met in Nashville at Vanderbilt Universityβs LASIR Laboratory to discuss the future of Human Scale Fluid Power. Human Scale Fluid Power is, quite simply, about scale, and generally refers to applications under 10 kW. While industrial automation falls under this definition, this […]
Compressed air fail: Automatic savings?
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge A fabricator of copper tubing products had a large and expanding plant with three separate compressed air stations located in three different areas. One area was constantly complaining of chronic low pressure events, so the maintenance staff decided to install an extra compressor in a fourth location, […]
Compressed Air Fail: Staff gets its wires crossed after plant fire
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge A metal foundry had a disastrous fire that took down part of their plant. Buried under the rubble were their new air compressors, installed only a few months earlier. Miraculously, their compressor supplier was able to refurbish the units, shine them up, and get them running like […]
Compressed air fail: Failure to see the obvious
By Ron Marshall for the Compressed Air Challenge A few years ago, an Italian woodworking company producing benches and chairs for schools purchased a central system controller for their three screw compressors. The controller was designed to automatically rotate the compressors to share the hours. It also provided a single pressure band, rather than using […]
