Trade Show and GAM Reports
PROFINET and PROFIBUS Rock More
loading… The PI North America General Assembly Meeting first afternoon started with each of our Board of Directors companies explaining why they were on board – on board with the technologies and on THE Board (of Directors). First up was Raj Batra of Siemens. He explained how PROFINET underlies the Siemens approach to industry. PROFINET…
Read MorePROFINET and PROFIBUS Rock!
loading… PROFINET and PROFIBUS Rock! At least that’s my opinion after the recently-concluded PI North America General Assembly Meeting. Other attendees have hopefully come to a similar conclusion. I may be slightly biased since my responsibility was putting together the program… again. And I have to admit that I did a great job. Or, rather,…
Read MoreThe Infrastructure Conference
loading… The Infrastructure Conference? No, it was The Automation Conference, but the Industrial Ethernet panel I was on spent a lot of time talking about infrastructure. I was there representing PROFINET (and Industrial Ethernet protocols in general to some extent), but most of the other panelists were from vendors. We spent some time discussing wire,…
Read MorePROFINET one-day training class – What is it like?
loading… I’m sure you’ve been wondering what a PROFINET one-day training class is like. (Unless you’re one of the thousands of folks who have already attended one.) Here’s what happens: Badge pickup and onsite registration begin early on class day, like 7:00am. The class does not start until 8:30 but some folks arrive very early,…
Read MoreHanover Fair: News Roundup
loading… After ranting just a little about PROFIpeople, I was called upon to introduce the international version of PROFInews. I’ll repeat the introduction in the next PROFInews North American Edition. And that introduction is about Hanover Fair so make that your first stop in the Hanover fair news roundup. And it’s followed by even more…
Read MoreHanover Fair – A Look Around
loading… PI was once again part of the Field Communication Lounge at Hanover Fair. The Lounge covered almost 5,400 square feet and was shared with competing technologies, complementary technologies, and some that are both. But let’s ignore them and look around the PI portion of the Lounge (click image to enlarge): A one-minute clip of…
Read MoreHanover Fair – Diagnostics
loading… PROFINET diagnostics are a huge differentiator for PROFINET. Building on the concepts pioneered by PROFIBUS (at the device, module, and channel level), PROFINET adds diagnostics for the Industrial Ethernet network. Because PROFINET is just Ethernet, it leverages IT protocols to prevent or quickly find problems. How does that help? This short animation, introduced at…
Read MoreHanover Fair: The News – PROFI Growth
loading… I almost hate to talk about the numbers of PROFIBUS and PROFINET nodes – the growth is so great that it just seems like bragging. I did say “almost.” The numbers through the end of 2012: PROFINET jumped to 5.8 million nodes installed. PROFIBUS grew to an installed base of 43.8 million of which…
Read MoreHanover Fair: The News – New Competence Center
loading… There was news of PROFIBUS and PROFINET at Hanover Fair: “50th PI Competence Center (PICC) Established” and it’s in the US! KW Software has become the fourth PICC in North America, joining the PROFI Interface Center (PIC), Molex, and HMS Networks. The PIC is a PICC for both PROFIBUS and PROFINET, the others for…
Read MoreHanover Fair First Impressions
loading… In the hotel bar after the first day of the show, a guy two stools away observed that we had obviously not been impressed by the show. For us it was just another show. The guy two stools down was from Indiana and it was his first show. He was more impressed than we…
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