Industrial Factory Automation

Julia King, vice chancellor at Aston University , will discuss the issues that surround low-carbon transport when she delivers the Icheme sixth John Collier memorial lecture in May. King's lecture, 'Keeping up the momentum after Copenhagen: Driving the transition to a low-carbon world' will draw upon her experiences leading the Treasury's review of low-carbon cars; her work on the world economic forum's global-agenda council on the future of transportation and the committee on climate change; and as chair of the technology strategy board's low-carbon-vehicle innovation platform. The lecture, which takes place at the Royal Society, London, on 5 May, will address the importance of technology, innovation and consumer behaviour, and the role the UK is playing in international developments.

The next technical lecture from the London Section of the Institute of Measurement and Control (IMC) is entitled 'SIL Compliant Fire and Gas Systems' and will be presented by Rob Pashby of ABB . At the lecture, which will be held at 18:15 on 9 February at the EIC in London, ABB will discuss the 800xA HI system that it has developed to meet the functional requirements of fire and gas systems and SIL compliance and what this means. The company hopes to provoke some discussion on why fire and gas systems, traditionally classified as post-event mitigation controls, are increasingly being specified as part of SIL-compliant safety systems. The presentation will highlight some of the work carried out by ABB specifically for fire and gas systems in the oil-and-gas sector and will introduce some of the new-range SIL-compliant detectors being used. Pashby is currently the UK safety execution manager for ABB, based in St Neots, and is a TUV-certified functional safety engineer. He works w...