About Process Online

Process Online

Overview

Process Online is an Australian online news service for the process engineering industries, published by Westwick-Farrow Media (WF Media) from North Ryde in Sydney, New South Wales. It carries the tagline "News, updates and product innovations in automation, control and instrumentation", which accurately describes its mix: daily industry news, technical feature articles and new product coverage aimed at engineers and managers working in process plants, manufacturing, utilities, mining and related sectors. The service forms the digital arm of the publisher's process technology media channel, whose print magazine is titled Process Technology. Process Online is not a legacy archive: its news pages were carrying multiple new items a day in mid-October 2026, including stories dated 13, 14, 15 and 16 October 2026, and WF Media continues to list Process Technology and Sustainability among the four industrial brands "leading the industrial conversation" on its corporate website.

History

Process Online's lineage runs through Westwick-Farrow Media's print history. The company was founded in 1981 by Adrian Farrow and Edwin Westwick, whose first magazine was What's New in Electronics. Process industry coverage followed later in the 1980s, when the company's second title, What's New in Process Engineering, was launched; Westwick-Farrow's own 40th-anniversary history records that the electronics and process titles were combined in the late 1980s to create an early company event, Electronics in Process Control. The process magazine was later known as What's New in Process Technology — it was named among the long-standing mastheads acquired when Universal Magazines bought the Westwick-Farrow business from founders Adrian and Yvonne Farrow, in a deal reported by AdNews after six months of negotiations. Under Universal's ownership the business continued to operate as Westwick-Farrow Media, with Geoff Hird, who had been with the company for more than 21 years, staying on as publisher. The print title is today branded simply Process Technology, while Process Online developed as the channel's website and daily news service. The print and digital arms still work as one channel: the publisher's 2025 Insights issue combined content from Process Technology, Sustainability Matters and ECD in a single magazine, and its masthead lists Glenn Johnson as editor of Process Technology.

Programming and Content

The site is organised around the working interests of process and plant engineers. Its channel structure includes automation, control, industrial networks and buses, process control systems, instrumentation, equipment, factory automation, pneumatics and hydraulics, software and IT, and general business news. The daily news feed covers the commercial and policy environment of Australian process industry: research funding announcements such as the Australian Research Council's $82.5 million Industrial Transformation awards, energy market reports, project milestones such as Coca-Cola Europacific Partners' $39.7 million can line upgrade in Perth, and technology agreements such as the October 2026 partnership between Seeq and Applied Computing on industrial AI for energy operations. Alongside the news, longer feature articles explain and contextualise technology — recent examples include pieces on extending the life of motor bearings under variable speed drives, testing Profinet I/O devices without a dedicated PLC, the roles of vendors and engineering contractors in project bidding, and rotating asset failure prevention. A Featured Products stream covers new instrumentation and equipment from suppliers such as Pepperl+Fuchs, Pilz and LAPP, giving the site a product-discovery function alongside its journalism. That product emphasis is a direct inheritance from the publisher's founding formula: Westwick-Farrow's anniversary history recounts that the company built its magazines around new product coverage after market research showed products were what readers most wanted, supported by a feedback system that connected readers directly with suppliers for more information. The feature well also makes room for lighter treatments of serious topics — a June 2026 article used the computer game Age of Empires to discuss instrumentation practice, and mid-2026 explainers covered how flow meters improve dosing pump performance and how IO-Link weighing technology works — sitting alongside conventional technical guidance. Content is written for Australia and New Zealand conditions but regularly reports international technology developments with local relevance, such as Rockwell Automation's cybersecurity and digitalisation work at Zimbabwe's Mimosa platinum mine.

Audience and Reach

Process Online addresses qualified process industry professionals — process and instrumentation engineers, plant and operations management, control systems specialists and the suppliers who serve them. Westwick-Farrow Media describes ProcessOnline.com.au in its marketing as "Australia's leading process engineering website"; that is the publisher's own description, not an independently audited ranking, and no audited audience figure for the individual title is published. At group level, WF Media states that it delivers business information to over 44,000 qualified technology and industry professionals across its sectors, and its corporate site reports annual figures including some 28 million ad impressions and just under two million website visits across all of its brands. Those are group-wide, publisher-reported numbers rather than Process Online readership figures, and they are best read as an indication of the scale of the stable the title sits within rather than of this service alone.

Digital Presence

Process Online is itself the digital presence of the process technology channel: a continuously updated website with a rolling news index, section fronts for its subject channels, an extensive searchable article and product archive built up over many years, and product listings with supplier detail. News items are published daily on weekdays, and feature articles are dated and categorised by discipline, so readers can follow instrumentation, networks or control topics separately. The site sits within a family of similarly structured WF Media channel websites — including ECDonline.com.au for the electrical and data sector, ElectronicsOnline.net.au and SustainabilityMatters.net.au — which cross-promote content and share a common publishing platform and footer identity. The companion print magazine, Process Technology, continues to appear, including in combined special issues such as the 2025 Insights edition produced with its sister titles.

Ownership and Organisation

Process Online is published by Westwick-Farrow Media (WF Media), the Sydney-based business-to-business publisher founded by Adrian Farrow and Edwin Westwick in 1981. AdNews reported the acquisition of the business by Universal Magazines from Adrian and Yvonne Farrow after six months of negotiations; the publisher now sits within the Universal Media Co group while continuing to trade under the Westwick-Farrow Media and WF Media names. Production is centralised at the group's North Ryde head office, where the masthead of the 2025 Insights issue lists Janice Williams as Publishing Director and Managing Director, Glenn Johnson as editor of Process Technology (the Process Online channel), and a shared art, production, circulation and advertising sales team working across the group's industrial titles. The company's registered contact details give its ABN as 22 152 305 336. In addition to its publishing program, the WF Media group runs industry events, including the Comms Connect conference series and SAFETYconnect through its WFevents team.

Contact and Availability

Process Online is published from WF Media's head office at Unit 5, 6–8 Byfield Street, North Ryde, New South Wales, with mail directed to Locked Bag 2226, North Ryde BC NSW 1670. The group's published phone number is +61 2 9168 2500 and its fax number is +61 2 9489 1265. Editorial contact for the process technology channel is via the editor's published address, pt@wfmedia.com.au, and circulation enquiries are handled through the group's circulation desk. The website at processonline.com.au is free to read without a subscription, and readers can follow its daily news and feature coverage directly through the site's channel pages.