My three hour layover in Chicago turned into five hours, so I got home in the wee hours of Sunday morning. But I’m now rested enough to complete my report on the SPS Drives show. [By the way, although there is plenty of news in the PROFIblog, there are also generous portions of opinion. I will leave the sorting of one from the other as an exercise for the reader. Opinion is what makes a blog a blog.]
And now the news…
From the PI press conference, here are the press releases covered:
TCI Specification Completed
PROFINET in Process Automation
PROFINET and MES: Closing The Communication Gap
There was no press release for the Chinese standards update, but Edgar Kuester did present some slides showing the presentation ceremony. I’ll revisit the standards after I catch up on the accumulated work from my day job. [Update: there is a press release for Chinese standards too]
The MES story is especially significant since we are the only one of the traditional fieldbus organizations to make this step. In fact, the expansion into the MES space and the introduction of TCI has caused us to re-state our mission and think of ourselves as “the leading automation organization for communication solutions.” The word “fieldbus” is not there although it is certainly a part of what we’re about.
A few last pictures from the last day of the show are here.