PROFIblog

loading… Trade show busy-ness typically follows this pattern for a three day show: Day 1: slow start leading to a slow day. Day 2: busiest day with no rest for exhibitors; maybe not even enough time for the traditional trade show lunch ($12 sandwich, $2 potato chips, and $3 soft drink). Day 3: slowest day;…

loading… The sun shined today in Houston!  And visitors flocked to the ISA EXPO.  The aisles were crowded especially near the main entrance.  There were more people than I expected and not all of them had exhibitor’s badges.  So either I set my expectations too low, the crowds looked bigger because it was a small…

loading… “The Fieldbus War Is Over” – now there’s a magazine article title I like (by Bill George in the Industrial Ethernet Book, September issue).  Yes, there’s still some competition, but I continue to believe that competition is a good thing.  I do have to take exception to one of the paragraphs, though: It should…

loading… Industrial Ethernet is growing.  No surprise there, but it’s always good to examine the real market.  Technology market researcher VDC did that according to their press release on the topic (that caught my attention in the October Control Engineering magazine): “Ethernet Continues to Gain Traction in Industrial Distributed/Remote I/O Market.” They are predicting that the Ethernet…

loading… Plant Engineering magazine presented a webcast today on “Advancements in Wireless Ethernet.”  You can find it archived here later.  Each of the three presenters was from a PTO member company: Siemens, Phoenix Contact, and ProSoft.  But the presentation was not geared towards any one protocol; it was about the infrastructure.  For those new to…

loading… This morning ARC provided a WebForum overview of Plant Asset Management (PAM).  It is a good, short introduction to the subject.  You should find it archived on this page later. PAM is frequently a feeder of information to EAM and MES systems (Enterprise Asset Management and Manufacturing Execution Systems).  The MES part reminded me…

loading… Last week’s ARCwire carried a news item about Ethernet/IP, a technology from ODVA that tries to be competitive with PROFINET.  The item talks about Ethernet/IP becoming a “machinery industry standard” in China.  What it does not say is that this is the entry level on the standards path in China.  It is called JB,…

loading… Our first PROFINET Developer Workshop is now history (for about 4 hours).  The hotel did not get the word to increase the seating, but they quickly corrected the situation before anyone arrived. Whew!  We had seven tool providers show device manufacturers how easy it is to add PROFINET to their products.  We had inadvertently…

loading… The Industrial Ethernet Symposium concluded about 6 hours ago.  This was the third symposium, the first in the US, and the largest to-date with over 150 in attendance.  The Tuesday afternoon panel discussion involving the leading Industrial Ethernet fieldbus organizations (and a few also-rans) was the highlight.  The morning featured some introductory analysis from…

loading… Like the universe itself, the industrial automation blogosphere is expanding: My old friend Tom Burke, president of the OPC Foundation, has a blog for his musings on all things OPC at http://opcfoundation.org/cs/blogs/. It looks like good information about PID, modeling, and control will fill the blog by two experts from Emerson at: http://www.modelingandcontrol.com/. In…