Gratuitous, self-serving praise for PI North America training

With two PROFINET one-day training classes and one PROFIBUS class behind us (and 15 to go) I thought it time to share some of the nice things students have said about the classes.  And the, ah, “constructive criticism” as well.  I’m off today for the PROFINET one-day training class in Mt. Laurel, NJ tomorrow.  (It’s not too late to register and join us, by the way.)  And I’m just back from Hanover Fair.  Look for news from the Fair soon.  In the meantime, here’s the Course Evaluation praise and criticism:

The “nice”:

Very applicable to my needs.

Very useful and timely as PROFINET is being extensively adopted by industry.

Loved the demos!

Well worth a day investment of time.

Nice accommodation. Enthusiastic presenters.

Good introduction to PROFINET.

Enjoyed the course – very informative and will help in future automation projects.

The course flows well throughout the day. These guys obviously have done this before. [Well, we have done this once or twice before… ok, 10 to 12 times per year for 6 years.]

Good overview. Worth my company’s time to attend. Thank you! The 3 presenter method worked well.

The critical:

Describe legacy PROFIBUS in greater detail since many are not familiar with it but expect to encounter it.  [Wish we had time to do more about PROFIBUS, but it is a PROFINET class.  We offer a one-day training class for PROFIBUS and the archived PROFIBUS webinars are available for those who can’t attend in-person.]

Some information about PROFIBUS DP not being available with Intrinsically Safe was incorrect.  [Oops, I’ll be more careful with this one.  I probably said that for a hazardous environment you had to use PROFIBUS PA.  But there is a PROFIBUS DP solution that runs on RS485is.  It is not used much though.  I actually have a video showing this in an earlier post and we touch on it in the PROFIBUS one-day training class.]

Espresso after lunch.  [I thought the instructor after lunch was exciting enough without requiring a caffeine jolt – guess I was wrong.]

In addition: ISA 100 wireless.  [We had one student who was a firm believer in ISA100.  We only have wireless connectivity for WirelessHART and he felt we should also have it for ISA100.  Frankly we have seen almost zero demand for ISA100 wireless and the vendors tell me the same thing.]

Very good class, need better jokes.  [I know this targeted me.  What can I say?  I’m guilty.  Please submit better jokes for me to use in the comments section below.]

I hope you will have a chance to attend one of our one-day training classes… or webinars… or Certified Network Engineer classes.

–Carl Henning