North Coast Technical is our long-term partner and a trusted distributor of our technology in the U.S. market. We talked to Dave Sexton, President at North Coast Technical, about the U.S. market and its demand for 3D vision technology. How does the North American market adopt 3D vision techn

Your packing operations are probably somewhere between fully automated and completely manual on the automation scale. Thanks in part to system integrators, automation has become common place for industry, but knowing which processes to automation, at what time, is key to your future success. Automa

Can you modify all your automation programs? Do you have the engineering drawings for everything on your manufacturing floor? Unfortunately for most manufacturer’s, the answer to one or both of these questions is “no.” A lot of integrators don’t relinquish their controller and HMI programs or drawi

Question: Should I add remote access to my blending operations for my automation provider? They keep telling me it will save me money in the long run but I’m not convinced it’s safe. Answer from Jason Baron, Automation Engineer: Remote access does provide a lot of advantages from a cost standpoint

Recently, Tube and Pipe Journal published an article called “An Automation Project Is A People Project” which featured an interview of John Schott, President of EPIC Systems, Inc. The article and Mr. Schott emphasize that a project cannot be successful without the people involved. In fa

Line integration has changed over the years. It’s not just about making several machines work together through controls and mechanical adjustments.  New technologies such as machine vision and robotics have made more possible with less, but have also created new challenges for automation expe

At EPIC Automation, every practical, beneficial and cost-efficient automation solution we develop is based upon industry research and trends.  Before any design or development takes place, our engineers take the time to research and gain a thorough understanding of the process.  In October of 2011,

From this month’s installment of Plant Engineering, we’ve consolidated this eight-step plan to help you to discover and debug your process control system which can be developed and applied as time goes by. Starting with nothing more than a pencil and paper and with the help of some commonly availab

  Rockwell Automation announced that as of June 2017, the PLC-5® Control System is discontinued and no longer available for sale. Are you one of many manufacturers still using PLC-5s? If so, you should consider upgrading from the now obsolete PLC-5 to a modern, currently supported controls

Industrial input/output (I/O) devices make up the central nervous systems of many modern machines and, by extension, industrial plants. In the past ten years the use of Ethernet as a physical layer has been one of the most important advancements in industrial automation design for fieldbus I/O devi

In your plant, you know your system best. EPIC Industrial Automation provides expertise in integrating, programming, and designing advanced automation systems. We can come into your plant, work with your existing systems and equipment, and provide a unique system that performs above and beyond expe

Andy Wolf, a project engineer in our controls engineering group at EPIC Systems, became a ThinManager certified integrator. ThinManager is visualization management software that is widely used in manufacturing facilities all over the world. Are you interested in upgrading to ThinManager? Below are

Is your high-speed production line running faster than what your QA system can keep up with? Production rate is an important factor when it comes to meeting customer demand, but what good is volume if the quality is lacking? What happens when your customers realize they purchased a faulty product?

Interested in automating your packaging line, but unsure if the investment is worth it? An experienced team of automated packaging system integrators is what you need. The level of automation and purchasing used or new equipment are two key areas that are discussed to help you achieve the highest R

Tired of having spilled product because of missing seals or crooked caps? What about missing labels or blistering? How much money are you wasting shipping empty packages or boxes? In the modern manufacturing environment, there are affordable automated packaging line quality control systems that can

How much automation is right for your packaging line? Which processes can you automate for the highest ROI? When is the right time to automate? These can be hard questions to navigate, but an experienced packaging integrator can help you figure out the answers. Five Factors to Consider When Determi

Still using PLC-5s? If so, you may want to consider a platform conversion  from PLC-5 to ControlLogix (CLX) soon. PLC-5s have been discontinued and are now obsolete, which poses risks if you are currently using them in your manufacturing plant. What happens if you experience a failure? Do you have

Do you want tighter control of your production lines, but can’t afford to install a controller for every line? Wish you could gather more data on your manufacturing process or integrate remote process data with on-site real-time feedback? PLC controls, combined with real-time Ethernet, networking,

Seventy percent of manufacturing equipment ‘loss of usefulness’ is caused by either mechanical wear or corrosion, as observed by Dr. E Rabinowicz at M.I.T.  In other words, most equipment fails because of small, invisible-to-the-naked-eye factors like abrasion, fatigue, corrosion, and erosion that

How to get turnkey plant automation solutions implemented at your facility. Many manufacturers can capitalize on automation in their plants, but actually implementing it can be a tricky process. Since 1995, we at EPIC have helped producers worldwide implement long-lasting automation solutions. Tha