Top 5 Control Engineering articles, July 4-10: Skills gap, process control systems, storyboarding and software design, more

Articles about the oil and gas skills gap, process control systems, storyboarding and software design, Industrie 4.0 and MES, and integrating multiple control systems were Control Engineering’s five most clicked articles from July 4-10. Miss something? You can catch up here.

By Chris Vavra July 11, 2016

The top 5 most read articles online, from Jul. 4-10 for Control Engineering, covered the oil and gas skills gap, process control systems, storyboarding and software design, Industrie 4.0 and MES, and integrating multiple control systems. See links below. 

1. Bridging the oil and gas ‘Skills Gap’

In tough economic times, smart hiring is essential—and can’t be overlooked.

2. Updating process control systems

When legacy control systems are replaced with new technology there is a great opportunity to benefit from modern systems and advanced technology. 

3. Storyboarding is a useful tool for the software design process

Though storyboarding adds an additional step to the software design process, it is invaluable to the client and the engineer when used in software development because it offers transparency and clarity to the client while streamlining the process for the developers and engineers.

4. Industrie 4.0 will have a major effect on MES, plant floor

Manufacturing execution systems (MES) are becoming less and less useful with the advent of Industrie 4.0 and Smart Manufacturing. Cyber-physical systems (CPS) and cyber-physical production systems (CPPS) can help guide a new kind of MES onto the plant floor.

5. Integrating multiple control systems

Control system integration: Very few plants have one monolithic controller running everything. Instead, many have subsystems which need to be interconnected for maximum effectiveness.

The list was developed using CFE Media’s web analytics for stories viewed on controleng.com, July 4-10, for articles published within the last two months.  

Chris Vavra, production editor, CFE Media, cvavra@cfemedia.com.

Original content can be found at Oil and Gas Engineering.


Author Bio: Chris Vavra is web content manager for CFE Media and Technology.