Brad Hart from PI North America member C&E Sales presented a PROFIBUS application story from a chemical plant at the General Assembly Meeting. It featured some AS-I, some PROFIBUS DP, some PROFIBUS PA, and some plans for PROFINET. The usual benefits were realized in wiring and related hardware savings plus labor savings. The real surprise was that startup took only one day!
This project used PROFIBUS because the user attended a one-day training class in Indianapolis. The class opened their eyes to the possible benefits of using a fieldbus, specifically PROFIBUS. Not that there weren’t some challenges along the way. The user’s engineering company had not attended any PROFIBUS classes, so C&E had to educate them. But in the end they accomplished that one-day startup.
I wonder how many other projects are started the old way with point-to-point wiring because the user just does not know about the benefits of using a fieldbus. You owe it to yourself (and your resume), not to mention your company, to educate yourself about fieldbuses in general and PROFIBUS and PROFINET in particular.
We provide
Certified Network Engineer classes
Lots of resources at www.us.profibus.com and www.AllThingsPROFINET.com.
Please, take advantage of them!
–Carl Henning