Industrial Factory Automation

Longwatch has published 'Tuning the Forgotten Loop', which describes an operator-training method that combines archived video, recordings of operator actions and process historians. A common description of an operator's job is hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer panic. What the operator does during panic situations often depends on how well he or she has been trained. Advanced tuning of an operator can yield better outputs, higher quality, fewer errors and a wider response to fluctuating operating conditions. This paper explores how to improve operator actions and offers a method for doing so. As part of cost reduction and increased automation, fewer humans are involved with operating larger and larger plants. This means those operators left have huge responsibilities and their actions can have a major effect on plant output and ultimately business performance. 'Tuning the Forgotten Loop', by Steve Rubin, president of Longwatch, covers the problems fac...

Wonderware has named Longwatch, a supplier of video monitoring hardware and software products, as a certified software provider. Wonderware software partner products are endorsed or certified by Wonderware to be applications with proven compatibility with Wonderware software. Certified software partners have access to Wonderware Beta programs, toolkits and senior technical support so they can integrate and extend Wonderware software on an ongoing basis. The Longwatch video surveillance system has been integrated with Wonderware's Intouch HMI, Active Factory, Historian and MES software in several applications. The combination of Wonderware software and Longwatch video systems allows operators in process control applications to see live and archived video from the plant floor directly on their Wonderware HMI screens. This allows operators to 'see' what is going on in a process plant or factory without having to send someone to the scene. The operator can also 'rewind...