The Internet and its surrounding technologies are taking over as leading tools in the provision of open and accessible control of all sorts of manufacturing industries.

The Internet and its surrounding technologies are taking over as leading tools in the provision of open and accessible control of all sorts of manufacturing industries, according to Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric's HMI expert Dave Sutton will present a paper on the application and implementation of web based automation technology at the British Automation and Robot Association (BARA) seminar at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham on 17th May 2006. Organised alongside the MACH 06 Exhibition and the Drives and Controls Exhibition and Conference, the presentation will highlight how Internet technology has impacted on industrial plant control.

A white paper written to accompany the conference presentation explores the development of industrial communication systems, Internet technologies and web services and its application to practical control devices such as HMIs and PLCs.

The paper concludes that the development of new web services based on Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) and Extensible Mark-up Language (XML) brings new end-user benefits such as ease of use, access, openness and transparency to industrial automation.