Microsoft has crowned COPA-DATA, the Austria-based software manufacturer for industrial automation, as its global Microsoft Partner of the Year in the IoT category. The award was presented at this year's Microsoft Inspire, the company's worldwide partner conference, which was held between July 9 and 13, 2017 in Washington, D.C., USA. This award is a recognition by Microsoft of COPA-DATA's innovations and software solutions based on Microsoft tech...

Investments in smart manufacturing are set to drive a 27% increase in efficiency over the next five years, boosting the global economy by a colossal $500bn. This is according to the recent Smart Factories and the Modern Manufacturer report. Here, Lee Sullivan, Regional Manager for COPA-DATA UK examines one of the key choices manufacturers will make during their digital transformation - choosing the right software.

Experts estimate that fossil fuels will be completely exhausted in the next century and as a result, there is a global effort to invest in a more diverse range of energy generation techniques. However, substantial investments in smart infrastructure are required to ensure the successful implementation and longevity, of renewable technologies. Adrian Kimberley, Regional Sales Manager for industrial software expert, COPA-DATA UK, discusses th...

COPA-DATA will demonstrate its smart factory solutions at the SPS IPC Drives trade fair in Nuremberg, Germany, from November 22nd to 24th. At booth 590, hall 7. The company and its partners are presenting how customers can gradually achieve sustainable networking of their production with zenon. 

A whitepaper investigating the state of security in the pharmaceutical manufacturing sector has been released by COPA-DATA. The whitepaper includes, the reasons why the pharmaceutical industry is so much more vulnerable to attacks and examines some of the most effective security tools that companies have at their disposal in the era of Industry 4.0.

How would you react to find an intruder had been in your house undetected for 229 days? Well this is a similar case for people and their manufacturing facilities. The average time between a cyber-security breach and its detection is 229 days. Leading the list of potential targets, is manufacturing facilities, for cyber espionage, denial of service (DoS) and web-application attacks.

Few companies can afford to have their operations halted by unexpected downtime, but for the energy grid potential power failures could plunge parts of, or entire, countries into darkness. The cost of ensuring that Britain can switch its lights back on, following a failure, has grown by £12m in the past year alone.

The CIGRE Session in Paris, from 21st-26th August will see COPA-DATA present its newest solutions for substation automation and substation HMI. JS automation and COPA-DATA will jointly demonstrate the numerous possibilities of the software system for developing individual and ergonomic solutions within modern smart grids.

A growing customer demand for regulatory compliance combined with increased competition amongst manufacturers has made SCADA software a minimum requirement for the pharmaceutical industry. Here, Lee Sullivan, Regional Manager at COPA-DATA UK discusses why today, more than ever before, regulatory compliance is crucial for the pharmaceutical industry.

As a nation, Britain has a knack for producing and harbouring engineering talent. Throughout history, its resourceful and practical people have poured their energy into infrastructure, innovation and technology. John Logie Baird gifted the world with colour television, Richard Trevithick created the first railway steam locomotive and British mathematician, Charles Babbage, is widely regarded as the ‘father of computers’ after inventin...

Increased demand for customised products and shrinking time-to-market expectations have contributed to the fundamental shift in how products are designed and created. To fulfil today’s demand for smart products and customised design, manufacturers must break away from their outdated, mass manufacturing habits and explore the world of automated engineering.

Providing employees with a suitable work-life balance can be quite the challenge for employers. Incentives including office pets, flexible working hours, team building exercises or a steady routine can all have a positive impact. However, implementing this balance across a team of individuals with varying motivators, interests and backgrounds is no easy feat. On average British workers spend 43 hours a week sat at their desks and one in five admi...

According to an industry survey by IBM, two thirds of mid-sized companies have already implemented - or are currently considering - a cloud based storage model for their organisation. The analytic advantages of cloud computing in industry are no secret, in fact, 70% of these cloud-using respondents said they were actively pursuing cloud-based analytics to gleam greater insights and efficiency in order to achieve business goals. By Martyn Williams...

The software specialist COPA-DATA is one of the first providers of process control systems in the DIMA – Decentralised Intelligence for Modular Applications project, initiated by industry specialist WAGO’s automation sector. The objective of the project is to create a de facto standard for decentralised, modular automation of process equipment and efficient engineering.

The cost of production downtime varies significantly from one industry sector to another, but without a doubt, when it occurs, downtime is a troublesome and expensive inconvenience for all manufacturers. More often than not, halts in production could be avoided, so imagine just how much manufacturers could save if machine data was available to anticipate breakdowns.

With zenon 7.50, zenon Analyzer 3 and zenon Logic 9, COPA-DATA is bringing to the market a comprehensive update of its family of software products. Numerous new features and improvements ensure simple project configuration, as well as robust runtimes and support users with ergonomic implementation of their automation projects.

The London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle continues to boast a hotbed of life science talent and more recently, West Sussex has started to hit headlines with its plans to reinvent itself as a science and health hub. With such rapid growth for the industry, predictions have emerged suggesting 2016 will be the year for even more ground-breaking work in the life science industry. By Martyn Williams, Managing Director of industrial software expert, COPA-D...

The COPA-DATA Group is strengthening its presence in France. Since 2002, COPA-DATA has held the majority stake in the COPALP company based in the South-East of France. The company has now been renamed COPA-DATA France. The youngest COPA-DATA subsidiary thereby takes over the management of the zenon product portfolio in France.

The pharmaceutical industry today operates in one of the world’s most heavily regulated environments. Over the past few years, the industry has experienced significant regulatory change and looking to the future, the strict nature of the industry doesn’t appear to be slacking.

The automation software zenon from COPA-DATA has been certified in accordance with the international energy systems standard IEC 61850 Edition 2. zenon thus proves its conformity with the most recent additions to the standard. The certificate was issued by TÜV SÜD Product Service.