With soaring oil and gas prices, transportation spending is a key area in the increasingly tough struggle to cut supply chain costs. This article outlines a number of strategies for cutting those costs, including benchmarking by the lane, rate, service, and mode; improving postponement strategies; balancing price with carrier adaptability; and improving both inbound compliance and outbound consolidation. Are transportation costs under control in your operations?

Polymer production requires an actuator that can survive noise, vibration, exposure to glutinous materials, and solvent washdowns. The chemical plant installed 400 valve controllers with traditional switches on one production line. For future needs, they installed another 400 controllers with Foundation Fieldbus connectivity on a second line.

What are the biggest challenges for industrial automation this year? After InTech editors interviewed a number of managers, they concluded the biggest problem isn't technology — it is workforce development. Closely related is the concern that a large number of engineers of the "baby boom" generation will soon retire and take their knowledge with them. But automation may soon fill this void, because as engineers retire, they are replaced by automation. In fact, there's a race going on to see which will replace the other: automation replacing people, or people retiring before automation replaces them.