Plant IT: Integrating Information Technology into Automated Manufacturing, a book by Momentum Press, expands upon many Control Engineering manufacturing IT columns by Dennis Brandl.

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Information Technology is an important element of plant floor operations, and Dennis Brandl’s monthly column on Manufacturing IT in Control Engineering magazine covers IT aspects that are critical to modern manufacturing. A new book, Plant IT: Integrating Information Technology into Automated Manufacturing, by Momentum Press, expands on the information presented in “Engineering and IT Insight,” Control Engineering’s manufacturing IT column. The book describes the wide range of information technologies that manufacturing professionals need to understand to effectively operate in the corporate IT environment.

Each section of the book discusses an IT issue that is important to a manufacturing company, including practical programming, real world design considerations, databases and master data management, knowledge management, tools and programming languages, cyber security, managing resource information and regulations, Brandl said. These topics will allow manufacturing professionals to intelligently discuss IT elements with their IT partners, so that IT can be effectively applied in plant floor operations without impacting production productivity or product quality, he said.

“Software engineering is a foundation for all IT elements, yet many manufacturing engineers are tasked with software development, when software development is not their area of training. Therefore, this book also covers important aspects of software engineering and software project management for non-software engineers that must manage or participate in IT projects,” Brandl said. It also provides a strong background for using information technology to advance and improve plant floor operations.

Dennis Brandl is founder and chief consultant at BR&L Consulting Inc., specializing in manufacturing automation, manufacturing operations, and manufacturing IT. He is an internationally recognized expert in manufacturing operations management (MOM), manufacturing execution systems (MES) and batch control.

Donald Brandl, co-author of the book, has a master’s degree in physics and works at Epic Systems Corp. He has designed, built, and tested detector, calibration, and other components for advanced aerospace and laboratory applications.

- Edited by Mark T. Hoske, content manager CFE Media, Control Engineering, Plant Engineering, and Consulting-Specifying Engineer, mhoske(at)cfemedia.com.

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Plant IT: Integrating Information Technology into Automated Manufacturing, a book by Momentum Press

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