Squaring the circle - new magazine launch

Squaring the circle

Andy Pye, Consulting Editor, welcomes readers to the inaugural issue of Controls, Drives and Automation (CDA), a brand new bimonthly print magazine for readers in the UK. It is a new read for machine builders, systems integrators and other decision makers who are looking for products, solutions, technical and best practice advice in the areas of Motion Engineering, Power Transmission and Automation and a new route to market for manufacturers & suppliers.

New magazine launches are rare in this era, so perhaps this is the one and only time when it’s justified to be a little self-indulgent! One of the articles in this issue discusses how some aspects of automation haven’t changed as much as we might have hoped – most control cabinets are still hard wired – while another article discusses the rapidly evolving area of mobile SCADA. A third makes mention of the need to take account of legacy systems in rail automation. Definitely a case of mixing the old and the new. Finally we announce details of a significant events celebrating Automated Britain, which Gambica is hosting.





And the publishing industry mirrors that as well.  While cost and other factors have driven many titles online, the printed word is certainly not dead.  The CDA website is due for launch very soon, and will form part of an integrated information resource, operating alongside the magazine. Within those traditional printed pages, QR codes make it possible to scan supplier information into a smartphone and link to a relevant online source of further information.

QR codes are also a common site on shop floors these days, as part of lean automation systems, to identify part numbers or to trigger an email to suppliers to replenish falling stocks on a just-in-time basis. Lean automation (“Lean” for short) is just one aspect of automation, a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. If production flows perfectly then there is no inventory.

Machines and systems are designed with enough intelligence to recognise when they are working abnormally and flag this for human attention. Thus, in this case, humans would not have to monitor normal production and only have to focus on abnormal, or fault, conditions.
It is often said that plants can be operated with the aid of one man and a dog. The dog is there to prevent the man from interfering with production, while the man is there to feed the dog!

More generally, any devices or components, motion engineering or power transmission systems used in the automation of products and processes are fair game in our new journal. And that includes its printing process….