Amidst the global pandemic of Covid-19, Ima will be organising a virtual ‘Sensing Future Days’ event from May 11–13 as well as from June 10–11 for the packaging industry. The participants can update themselves on the technical details of various machines showcased at the show and also interact with specialists from the field.

Data forms the basis for any optimization strategy. In the framework of the NOA concept, Phoenix Contact now provides with the Cloudwriter an app, with which the measurement data recorded in the systems can be transferred simply, without retroactive effects and securely to a cloud for evaluation.

Mitch Eichelberger has succeeded Dave Morgan as Chevron Phillips Chemical Company’s new Senior Vice President, Polymers & Specialties. Eichelberger currently holds the position of senior vice president, Corporate Planning and Technology at the firm.

In an ordinary year, PI (Profibus & Profinet International) would already – and once again – have presented its progress on Industry 4.0 work at the Hanover Fair – but this is no ordinary year. Nevertheless, the working group experts are working tirelessly on implementing concepts like the use of Profinet over TSN, fail-safe machine-to-machine communication and information models for vertical communication – virtually and at a safe distance, of course.

ABB offers a suite of remote-enabled solutions for customers in critical industries in order to operate facilities and keep production running in the background of Coronavirus. With these digital solutions, field operators and service engineers can now stay at home and get access to control rooms and key performance indicators of their plants.

Mitsubishi Chemical under its subsidiary firm Mitsubishi Chemical America has plans to acquire Gelest, an American organic and inorganic hybrid chemicals manufacturer. Both the companies have entered into a definitive agreement for this purpose.

Digital assistant for the control room — A battle for supremacy rages in the consumer world of voice-controlled digital assistants. Google, Amazon, Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft are the trailblazers on this market and want to make their assistant an integral part of our everyday life. But when you look to industrial applications, the search still comes up empty. This is about to change, because useful applications are manifold and a prototype is now entering the pilot phase.

Syntegon will be hosting a virtual trade event from May 7–13 to showcase its latest process and packaging technology. The company announced stable business performance last year and is currently witnessing increased demand in its services business due to the global Covid-19 pandemic.

PROFIBUS is the only fieldbus system that provides equal support for production and process automation as well as drive technology by leveraging a single, end-to-end communications protocol.

With its new partner It-motive, Aucotec wants to link its cooperative platform Engineering Base (EB) even more closely and rapidly to ERP and PLM systems. This will also make the idea of a holistic digital twin easier to implement.