Statistics or Engineering
The magic in the Industrie 4.0/Industrial Internet of Things meme is the analytics. Mining Big Data in the Cloud reveals where process improvements and cost savings can be found. The whole analytics thing is kind of murky (cloudy? FOG-gy?) for me. I see where PROFINET is good at providing the data (raw data, data quality…
An Expanded IIoT Checklist
What does it take to have your very own Industrial Internet of Things project? PROFINET has a role to play: Things. The starting point. The “T” in the IIoT. In the industrial world these are sensors, actuators, instruments, I/O blocks, drives, vision systems, robots, Ethernet switches, scanners, label printers, RFID, switches, lights, and more. These…
Uptime with PROFINET
How much does downtime cost you in your plant? An automotive plant’s downtime could cost $10,000 per hour. Your mileage may vary, but there definitely is a cost for downtime at your plant. And you can’t be everywhere all the time to know whether your process is running as it should. You need an extra…
The Network is an Asset
I always think of PROFINET as facilitating Asset Management – conveying messages from assets (especially process devices) to warn of impending failure and allow proactive maintenance. Then at PI Australia’s PROFIBUS & PROFINET Global Forum and Automation Innovation Summit, one of the speakers said something simple, yet profound: “The network is an asset.” What asset…
Top Ten Reasons to Become Certified in PROFINET
Carl and Michael are at the annual international PI meeting. So this week we feature this guest post from the instructor of the PROFINET Certified Network Engineer class, Hunter Harrington: Run the automation race and keep the pace with your very own PROFINET certification. Your Goal: Become a PROFINET certified engineer to help keep pace…
Hannover 2016: Member News
Visiting PI North America members uncovered some unique products. Here they are in the order I stumbled upon them: HMS. In the OPC Foundation booth, our old friend Michael Volz showed me an HMS module that moves PROFINET data to OPC UA. Both protocols run on the same wire – a benefit made possible because…
The Data-Driven Factory
Being in the business of moving data with PROFINET, references to the data-driven factory* appeal to me. Appealing as that is, it’s an incomplete story. Like a word-driven blog post. Random words collected do not a blog post make. Random data collected does not a factory drive. Data is the raw material. Turning it into…
Getting Data to IIoT
The Industrial Internet of Things (which is a subset of Internet of Things and a subset of Industrie 4.0) needs data. The data can be used to analyze and feed back improvements to the process. But how do you get the data? PROFINET! Yes, PROFINET is ideal for collecting data from sensors and other devices…
PROFINET – The Solution Platform for Process Automation
Industrial communication is one of the key technologies for modern automation. In Industrie 4.0, Industrial Internet of Things, and Big Data environments, industrial communication is of central importance. Easy-to-handle solutions with high-performance capability for real-time communications, high availability, flexible topologies, and integration are needed to make use of the many possibilities of the digital world. This white paper reports the functions and capabilities of PROFINET that meet the demands of process automation.
PROFINET – Show Me the Money
PROFINET can help you justify your project as these features have financial rewards: Feature: proxies. Benefit: Maps legacy networks into PROFINET using an open standard. The money: no need to rip and replace. Leave your current network intact and add a proxy to integrate the devices into a new PROFINET-based controller. Gain the benefits of…