PROFIpeople
loading… It’s not always about the technology – as solid at the PROFIBUS and PROFINET technologies are. Sometimes it’s about the people who are the public face of the technologies. When you call the PI North America office during business hours, a person answers. We don’t have “press star for a company directory.” We don’t…
Manufacturing in America
loading… Manufacturing in America That was the title for last week’s symposium sponsored by Siemens that was accompanied by the following tagline: Community. Collaboration. Innovation. The symposium revolved around a series of talks from End-Users, OEMs, and other industry experts. There was a strong focus on the automotive industry, due in part to its high…
News Roundup
loading… “I’m headed for the last roundup” – so sings Gene Autry in an MP3 track I listen to occasionally. And today we’re headed for the last roundup… for now anyway. We’ve had a video roundup and a white paper roundup and we’ll finish off the roundups with this news roundup: At Control Engineering Automaker…
Industrial Ethernet Security in X Steps
loading… Are fieldbuses less secure than Industrial Ethernets? I think not (in a rare disagreement with Mike Miclot and Brian Oulton from Belden in the webinar “Industrial Security in the Real World: Practical Steps”). They said Industrial Ethernet is more secure. I think the potential security problem with fieldbuses is that they connect to controllers…
White Paper Roundup
loading… There has been a flurry of activity with respect to White Papers being written about PROFIBUS and PROFINET. What’s unique about these however, is that they are not being written by us here at PI, but rather member organizations. I thought I’d take the time to quickly grab a few of the latest ones…
On the PROFI Road
loading… Perhaps you’ve noticed – I like talking about PROFINET and PROFIBUS. Sometimes here, sometimes on the road. I’m just back from on the road in Seattle and the first PROFINET one-day training class of 2013 (with 10 more PROFINET and 7 more PROFIBUS to go). The material is new, revised, re-ordered, and more detailed,…
Dueling Views of PROFINET’s Place in System Architecture
loading… I was amused by these dueling viewpoints in recent Control Engineering articles: Ethernet for sensor networks? Why it makes sense today Consider a sensor network to ease connections The first one argues for network-connected, machine-mounted IO that can be close to the sensors and actuators. That’s a good argument and I fully agree with…
PROFINET Video Roundup
loading… If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many words is a video worth? Rather than answer that and waste words, here are some PROFINET videos (with referrals to more): Some application stories: GE Intelligent Platforms: Also see a recent blog post for the GE Intelligent Platforms answer to PROFINET – Why…
Are FOUNDATION fieldbus and PROFIBUS PA the same thing?
loading… Are FOUNDATION fieldbus and PROFIBUS PA the same thing? is the title of an excellent blog post on the Pepperl+Fuchs USA Blog. In fact, I liked the title so well I “borrowed” it to title this post. The short answer to the question is “no.” But there are some nuances. PROFIBUS PA and Foundation…
Another PROFI Milestone
loading… Any history buff’s out there? We just published a bit of a retrospective of the PI organization viewed through the lens of newsletters past. PI began publishing PROFINEWS to an international audience almost 20 years ago, in 1994, more specifically. View the commemorative Issue 100. Relive the early days of PROFIBUS and PROFINET in…