— Managing Automation, March 20, 2007

— Control Engineering, March 20, 2007

Maximizing productivity is a common goal for motion system engineers. In this report, Motion System Design editors tap industry experts, including GE Fanuc's Mike Richards, for advice on how to maximize productivity associated with control platforms.

Effective automation is at the core of successful manufacturing enterprises because it provides tools to manage information and processes. Yet automation is more than making individual machines, groups of machines or even entire enterprises work effectively. That definition has now expanded to tying together all the islands of information within the enterprise — from the plant floor to the business office and back again. GE Fanuc representatives share their views of MES and associated topics in this article from Plant Engineering's September 2006 issue.

It's been said that the only constant in the universe is change. There is perhaps no industry today that is feeling the effects of change more than the pharmaceutical industry. In the November, 2005 issue of Pharmaceutical Processing, GE Fanuc's Bart Reitter talks about OEE and its impact on the bottom line.