With all the process efficiency and energy savings benefits that variable frequency drives (VFDs) offer the production environment, it’s not surprising that operations of all kinds rely on them. In fact, some facilities run upwards of hundreds of VFDs, helping them precisely control nearly every motor they use.

In order to satisfy the requirements of Industry 4.0 and the advancing digitalization of production, the continuous advancement of our products is extremely important. That is why we have completely revised our type OG fork light barriers without losing sight of their proven technology.

I recently had the honor of being invited back for the second time to speak at the semi-annual meeting sponsored by the Industrial Control Systems Joint Working Group (ICSJWG) within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. I presented some exciting information on new network monitoring technologies, building significantly upon the information I presented last year. 

As its name suggests, Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) cabling uses only one pair of wires to transmit data, as opposed to the two pair that have long been standard in the majority of Ethernet cabling in use worldwide.

It’s been nearly two years now since the heinous Triton malware incident was initially publicized. Many specifics were never released for security reasons, but as readers might be aware, a very large petrochemical facility in Saudi Arabia observed one day that their safety system—the commonly deployed Triconex product by Schneider Electric—was engaging and shutting down production, yet no threat could be found. They brought in Schneider Electric and then malware experts including FireEye and soon discovered that the culprit was a piece of malware that had infected their system.