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Bangera named new president of ISA Maharashtra section
At its annual general meeting on 25 June 2016, the ISA Maharashtra section (India) named Deepti Chacko Bangera as the section's president for 2016 - 2017. Neeraj Agrawal was named president-elect. Bangera, the business development manager at Rolta India in Mumbai, assumes the responsibilities of section president from Vithal Magar, the 2015“2016 president.
Bangera has been active in the Maharashtra section for several years. She has been highly involved in raising funds for the section through its many technical conferences, seminars, and training events targeted to the chemical, petrochemical, oil and gas, pharmaceutical, and power industries. She also served as the section's program chairperson in 2013 - 2014 and as marketing chairperson in 2014 - 2015.
The June meeting commemorated the section's 25-year existence. All 25 past presidents of the ISA Maharashtra section attended the event and received mementos in recognition of their service.
District 12 news
DLC 2016 in Milan
The ISA Italy section hosted this year's District 12 Leaders Conference in Milan, Italy, on 20 - 21 May. District 12 includes Europe, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa. Jim Keaveney, ISA president, and Patrick Gouhin, ISA executive director, attended, as did section leaders from France, Belgium, England, Spain, the Netherlands, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, St. Petersburg, Ireland, and Italy. At the conference, the Italy section celebrated the 40th anniversary of its charter, created on 24 March 1976.
To create more visibility for ISA among automation professionals and end-user companies in the region and to better implement society objectives, District 12 has established annual awards. The awards were presented at the May meeting to recognize excellence in performance and automation:
- Best section of the year: ISA Spain section
- Excellent Performer Award: Gianfranca Sanzeni, ISA Italy section
- Automation Excellence in Academics: Stefano Malavasi, Italy, and Alexander V. Bobovich, PhD, St. Petersburg
- Student Excellence Award in Automation: Ghalib A. Al-Hashim, Saudi Arabia
ISA Ireland
Nearly 240 professionals gathered in Cork, Ireland, to explore solutions to automation challenges in food processing and drug manufacturing and distribution. The third annual ISA Food and Pharmaceutical Industries Division (FPID) Symposium, held 14“15 March, outlined best-practice approaches in automation to leaders seeking to improve quality, safety, reliability, profitability, cost control, and production throughput. This symposium was the first one held outside North America, and it drew nearly twice as many attendees as the one held the previous year in Philadelphia, Pa.
The FPID, which is within the industry and sciences department of ISA, expands awareness and understanding about the latest technologies for consumer packaged goods and pharmaceutical supply chains. The FPID retains a knowledge base of design, engineering, system, software, process automation, validation, quality, research, and scientific professionals.
The technical program featured 40 presentations and the perspectives of 33 subject-matter experts. Particular attention was given to how automation can help solve key front-and-center challenges, such as meeting regulatory requirements, reducing manufacturing costs, and countering security threats, and the role of automation technology and innovation in addressing longer-term global dynamics and demands. Conference sessions included serialization, track and trace, data integrity, digitization, cybersecurity, biotech, process optimization, Industry 4.0, equipment effectiveness, and alarm management.
"This was truly an internationally focused event, because it tackled the significant issues and trends in automation affecting the food and pharmaceutical industries on a global scale," emphasized Andre Michel, president of Efficient Plant, Inc., and director of ISA's Food and Pharmaceutical Division. Michel added that the Ireland section played a major role in promoting the event locally and attracting a large base of attendees.
ISA St. Petersburg
St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technology and Design held a ceremony presenting the results of the "Student of the Year" contest last November. Undergraduate student George Korol, an active member of the student section of ISA, received the award for best in scientific and technical creativity from Georgy Poltavchenko, the governor of St. Petersburg. Last year, 165 students from 35 universities participated in the competition.
Vladimir Kraskin, PhD, the oldest member of the Russian section of ISA and a retired colonel, wrote a book with H.N. Kraskina about the establishment of the Baikonur Cosmodrome, the launch complex from which Sputnik 1 was launched. It describes the life and work of the people who participated in the testing of the country's first intercontinental ballistic missile and the breakthrough of sending a human to space. The book, which was published on the 55th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's flight, contains little-known facts from the history of the development of rocket and space technology. The authors presented it during the 69th International Student Scientific Conference of SUAI.
ISA Israel
ISA Israel organized a three-day training course on explosion protection, covering IEC 60079 and ATEX/NEC. It was part of an ongoing effort to increase knowledge among local instrumentation and electrical design and maintenance personnel. Arnon Tal, a local instructor, conducted the training, and a TUV representative evaluated the final examination forms. More than 45 students attended.
ISA UAE
ISA UAE held its first automation conference and exhibition on 30 - 31 May at Abu Dhabi under the patronage of the ADNOC group. The conference had about 40 technical papers on topics including advanced process control and optimization, asset management, digital fields, energy management, flow metering, function safety and safety instrumented systems, and industrial control system cybersecurity.
ISA England
ISA England participated in the Sensor and Instrumentation Exhibition and Conference at NEC Birmingham in October 2015. ISA had a speaker and a booth at the two-day exhibition. Marc P. van der Schee, MD, PhD, a biomedical scientist, spoke about the concept of disease detection through breath analysis. The Owlstone chemical sensor can detect markers of disease, which enables early detection and gives patients a noninvasive and less distressing test. This technology can detect diseases such as cancer, infectious diseases, and inflammatory diseases. The core technology that made the analysis possible comes from a simple chemical sensor on a silicon chip. Owlstone is on target to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in public health care costs by 2020.
The Sensor and Instrumentation event is now in its sixth year, and it is firmly established as the U.K.'s only national sensors event. The 2015 event had a number of new elements, which further developed the conference as a key industry trade show. The main purpose of ISA England's interest in participating in this show was the ongoing professional development opportunities for professionals in the sensors and instrumentation field.
ISA Qatar
ISA Qatar organized its 90th technical seminar on the utilization of laser technology in the field of gas detection in the oil and gas industry. Speaker Larry Hudson, vice president of Senscient U.K., explained how his company has developed and patented a laser technology application for toxic and flammable gas detection. Zaheer Juddy, managing director of AIMS, emphasized the use of laser technology in the field of gas analysis. The seminar was presided over by Nilangshu Dey, president of the ISA Qatar section, and it was attended by control engineers from many engineering and contracting companies of Qatar.
ISA France
ISA France, in cooperation with the French engineering school INSA de Lyon, conducted a seminar on functional safety and security in critical systems on 18 October 2015. The seminar addressed the relationship between safety and cybersecurity.
The two disciplines have to coexist, because the general philosophy behind them is the same: to identify and analyze risks and reduce them to an acceptable level. But even though they share several fundamentals, important differences exist. The origins of dysfunctions are of different natures, and the protective measures required may be divergent. The methodologies, reference standards, and competencies are still distinct, and safety benefits from the "privilege of age." A reconciliation between these disciplines is required. The seminar aimed at analyzing the problem of safety and cybersecurity to understand what unites and divides them, with the ultimate aim to highlight best practices for managing industrial risk.
ISA France is also addressing Industrial Internet of Things (IIot) with a training course. IIoT is becoming a buzzword in the control systems area. Companies expect more efficiency, more flexibility, and more productivity, but there is a risk that IIoT remains just hype without any real industrial applications. The course explains the technological foundations of IIoT and how the current control systems architectures may migrate to this new paradigm. The topics covered in the course are the wireless solutions (WPAN, WLAN, LPWAN), new Internet protocols, energy harvesting, and cybersecurity issues.
New CAPs and CCSTs!
Qualifying for and passing one of ISA's certification exams is a noteworthy accomplishment. The exams are rigorous and require a solid command of various disciplines in automation and control. Below is a list of individuals who have recently passed either our Certified Automation Professional (CAP) or one of the three levels of our Certified Control System Technician (CCST) exam. Congratulations to our new certification holders! For more information about the ISA CAP and CCST certification programs, please visit www.isa.org/training-and-certifications/isa-certification.
Certified Control System Technicians
| Name | Company | Location |
| Robert A. Gray | Linde | U.S. |
| Jane M. Davis | None | U.S. |
| Jacob T. Payne | None | U.S. |
| Thomas D. McCorison | None | U.S. |
| Jeremy S. Kibler | None | U.S. |
| Luke S. Meyer | None | U.S. |
| Gene A. Rohde | None | U.S. |
| David A. Wright | None | U.S. |
| David E. Rylander | Linde | U.S. |
| Joseph Lawdanski | Custom Control Unlimited | U.S. |
| Ernest L. Gautreau | None | U.S. |
Certified Automation Professionals
| Name | Company | Location |
| Ronak D. Patel | DuPont Industrial Biosciences | U.S. |
| Vitor De Matos Castilho | Radix Engenharia | Brazil |
| Esam M. El Hassan Khudr | Naizak Global Engineering System | Saudi Arabia |
| Joseph Toronyi | None | Saudi Arabia |
| Daming Yang | None | U.S. |
| Asa A. Ange | Champion Technology Services | U.S. |
| Ryan E. Robinson | Metro Wastewater Reclamation District | U.S. |
| Arockiaraj Gnanupillai | None | U.S. |
| Iqtidar Muhammad Khan | SNC Lavalin Inc. | Canada |
| Shelby J. Moorman | None | U.S. |
| Dustin L. Phillips | Thermo Systems, LLC | U.S. |
| Alfredo Agelviz | PAS Technologies Inc. | Puerto Rico |
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