On Day 2 of the annual meeting we discussed the PROFINET of Things topic in depth in a panel discussion. Our diverse panel included:
- Mike Bastian, Ford Motor Company
- Karsten Schneider, PI
- Mark Hoske, Control Engineering
- Drew Baryenbruch, Real Time Automation
They provided different perspectives on the PROFINET of Things (and IIoT and Industrie 4.0), supplemented by the entire audience. It was summarized that Industrie 4.0 is, well, let’s call it “comprehensive.” But it was also clear that our Venn diagram showing that IIoT was common to both IoT and Industrie 4.0 was accurate. My favorite part of the discussion was the moderator asking “What, if anything, is missing from PROFINET to be ‘the’ choice protocol for IIoT?” The room was silent for a while until Mike Bastian said “Well, there’s your answer.” Given that most of our members are also members of other consortia, the silence was powerful.
A similar panel at last year’s meeting wound up confronting security for the whole time. This year we moved the security discussions into two other sessions. More about them in the next post.
–Carl Henning