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DSM to build two new engineering plastic plants in the Netherlands
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Royal DSM N.V. announced it has decided to construct two new manufacturing facilities at its Chemelot site in Geleen, the Netherlands. Geleen is DSM’s biggest and oldest manufacturing site. The company is making these investments in response to what it calls "excellent market growth" for two of its top specialty products,
Stanyl polyamide 46 and Stamylan UH ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, which is used among other things as a raw material for Dyneema high strength fibers. The new Stanyl plant and the new Stamylan facility, which will each double existing production capacity, are scheduled to come on line in 2008. The total investment will be around €100 million. Stanyl is used in a variety of applications, such as automotive, mobile phones, computers and personal electronics. Stamylan UH is used as a high strength, wear-resistant engineering plastic in industrial, sports and other applications and in Dyneema, the world’s strongest fibre.
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Food and beverage needs global automation infrastructure
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Many of the leading food manufacturers recognise the need for a vastly improved and more global automation infrastructure than currently exists in even their most automated facilities, according to a recent report by the ARC Advisory Group. It says that recent and continuing consolidation in the food manufacturing industry has placed initial emphasis on standardising common, enterprise- wide financial systems with global deployment of these business systems from both large and small technology suppliers.
Many of the larger food and beverage manufacturing companies are specifying adherence to international standards for enterprise to control system integration. This is also important in the design of factory floor
controls because it helps define the types of data to be exchanged between the business and production systems. "Food manufacturing firms are able to use this new automation to meet the changing demands
of a growing and increasingly diverse population and consumers’ demands for pre-processed foods," says Asish Ghosh, author of the report.
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Emerson announces its wireless strategy
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At its Global Users Exchange meeting in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, Emerson Process Management said it would launch its wireless networking solutions and make a 2.4 GHz product available in Europe in early 2007.
"Manufacturers hate surprises in their facilities, and have long wanted to have eyes and ears on every asset to know what is really going on in their operation," commented John Berra, president of Emerson Process Management. "Until now, there was no easy, reliable and economical way to reach all of the assets that needed monitoring. Smart Wireless technology for in-plant mainstream applications changes that paradigm. Inspired by customer input, we began research and development of this new technology in 1998,
and have completed three years of customer field trials. In those trials, we've seen customers quickly discover and remedy problems that would have gone undetected." He said that Overall, Emerson wireless trial customers have experienced 99.9 percent network reliability, extremely easy deployment, industrial strength security, long battery life, and as much as 90 percent less installed cost.
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350 flowmeters in China’s three gorges dam
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Krohne says it is one of only two companies that has supplied electromagnetic flowmeters to China’s huge Three Gorges Dam, after it won a bidding process for the left bank power station in 2001. The company was
also asked to make another bid in 2005 for the right bank power station, which it also won. The total number of flowmeters supplied in the project, according to Krohne, is 350. When it is completed in 2009, the Three
Gorges Dam in Central China will be the largest concrete dam in the world, spanning more than 1.5 kilometres across the Yangtze River, and measuring more than 180 metres in height. The electricity created
by the dam’s 26 hydropower turbines is expected to equal that of 18 nuclear power plants—approximately one ninth of China’s total output of electricity.
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