News from Australia and India: PI Australia held their annual member meeting and looked back at the year’s achievements, including a new membership high. PI India demonstrated a seamless multivendor system at SPS Automation India 2016.
PI Australia
As with its client base, Profibus Australia’s 2015 was defined by industrial transformation and a focus on innovation, its recent Annual General Meeting noted.
The event, held at Burkert Fluid Control Systems on August 25, saw attendees reflect on a raised profile for the organization during the year. Chairman Rafael Koenig put this down to PAA’s innovation-focused marketing initiatives over recent years.
Most notable achievements have been the launch of Zenith Awards’ Best Fieldbus Application in partnership with PACE, the launch of Fieldbus Forum featuring nine experts from competing communication protocols, plus the launch of the 2016 PROFINET & PROFIBUS Global Forum and the ‘Automation Innovation Summit’ held at the Australian Technology Park in May 2016.
“Our Industrial Communication Networks are playing a significant role in the current digital transformation,” said Koenig of manufacturers meeting the challenges of the future, which includes the move to Industry 4.0.
“So it is incumbent on Profibus Australia to demonstrate a high degree of thought leadership if it is to assist the companies that fall within our sphere of influence”.
The importance of innovation featured highly in 2015 – 2016, with an urgent national conversation spurred on by the end of the mining boom, and including the release of the government’s National Innovation and Science Agenda last December. The end of the commodities boom has forced Australia to face declining standards of living unless productivity can be lifted. Innovation, unquestionably has to play a role. According to CSIRO research, up to 60 per cent of Australia’s productivity growth overall is due to innovation.
Fittingly, the adoption of industrial automation to lift productivity featured highly at the PROFIBUS & PROFINET Global Forum and the Automation Innovation Summit in May 2016. For 2015/16, the mining downturn was felt by PAA, as expected. As the 2015 AGM predicted they would be, PROFIBUS training revenues were significantly down for the year. The 2015 financials saw gross training revenues fall significantly due to the resources industry’s decline and cost-cutting efforts. Two straight years of profits for PAA came to an end.
Furthermore, hosting the highly-successful May 2016 PI Meeting, featuring global industrial communications networks leaders from Profibus International, was a meeting of a caliber not to be seen again here within a decade. It also meant increased planning, administration and promotional costs for PAA.
The AGM also heard that the group’s membership reached an all-time high of 40.
PAA also announced the elected 2016 Executive and Marketing Committees.
Executive Committee
Rafael Koenig – PAA Chairman
Chris Hoey – PAA Treasurer
Andrew Dummett – PAA Secretary
Marketing Committee
Falk Hohmann (Siemens), John Ortika (Phoenix Contact), Patrick van Eybergen (TI2), Sean Smith (E+H), Jason Mair (SICK), Jason Lee (GE Automation & Control), Jim Wallace (Balluff), Kaveh Fanian (P+F), Robert Klicek (Weidmuller), Rafael Koenig (Pentair), Chris Hoey (Burkert Fluid Control Systems) and Andrew Dummett (Adshop).
PI India
PI India participated in SPS Automation India 2016 at Ahmadabad, Gujarat. The exhibition served as the ideal platform for showcasing leading process automation technology and innovations. As innovations are imperative for every industry to keep pace with the changing world, with technology rapidly advancing and further fueled by “Make in India” effort initiated by the Government of India. The event saw visitors from Gujarat and nearby states in India coming from different backgrounds such as End User, OEM, System Integrator, service provider, trader, and education.
The booth focused on promoting PROFIBUS and PROFINET Technology and showcased the support available from exhibiting members. The demonstration system showcased the smooth and seamless integration of the devices from various manufacturers on a common platform.
Profichip and UL Group showcased their solution basket. The Siemens corner focused on a new range of PROFIBUS and PROFINET based PLC and DCS Systems represented by their Mumbai and Ahmedabad marketing team. Profichip, Germany was represented by their International Sales Manager showcasing their advanced chipset technology for implementation of any digital fieldbus communication such as PROFIBUS or PROFINET using ASICs. The UL Group is the PI Competence Center (PICC) in India. Their corner was represented by the marketing and support team from Pune and Ahmedabad. They demonstrated a wide variety of PROFIBUS and PROFINET products made available from companies represented by them. They also showed readily available network diagnostic services support and trainings. This diversity on the same platform left a good impression on all the visitors about the support system available in India to all the technology users.