After 33 years with Monsanto and Solutia, I can’t help thinking like a user. Even as a contractor, the user view pervades my motivations and goals. I would make a lousy sales and marketing person.

Looking back through the history of automation, it’s not difficult to see how most advances are extensions of existing technologies. This can be seen at all levels of automation—from the evolution of ...

Proportional integral derivative (PID) control is a common method used to regulate the dynamic behavior of a system. Examples are found in many industrial devices, where it’s employed for control of ...