Regional News – August 2016

This month, read up on PROFINET Road Shows occurring in Brazil, Technology Awareness Seminars taking place across South East Asia, and PROFIBUS Troubleshooting and Maintenance classes being taught in the Middle East. Is there an event in your area that might be worth attending?


 

Brazil

RoadShowDemoPI BRAZIL has started PROFINET Road Shows. These technological events aim to spread the fundamentals of the Ethernet standard, PROFINET, along with:

  • Real-time communication concepts
  • Discussions on basic configuration
  • Profinet addressing
  • Demonstrating the integration between PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and Wi-Fi Networks
  • Safety
  • Security
  • Diagnostics
  • Process automation
  • IoT with PROFINET
  • Best practices

Bela HorizonteA PROFINET demonstration kit was assembled, using devices from many vendors that are Brazil’s PI members. After some test events, first edition of PROFINET Road Show was held in Belo Horizonte – MG on July 14, 2016. The impact of the event was positive and Mr. Marcio Santos – PROFINET Technology Director of PI Brazil, has already scheduled the next event, which will take place on August 25 in Sertãozinho – SP. The Road Show is being planned in many cities in southern Brazil.


South East Asia

The PROFIBUS/PROFINET Association South East Asia (PI-SEA) successfully conducted its first Technology Awareness Seminar in 2016. The seminar was conducted in Surabaya, Indonesia at the JW Marriott Hotel on May 25, 2016. 85 people attended the event from 54 different manufacturing companies and process industries from all over Indonesia.

The Seminar was supported by Leoni, Pepperl + Fuchs, Siemens, and Turck. These companies provided hands-on demonstrations of their products and solutions during the micro-fair sessions. This gave the participants the chance to discuss face to face with technology experts.

Mr. Jorey Guzman, President of PI-SEA, presented the latest news, including the overall world figures for installed nodes. PROFIBUS increased its node base by 2.8M in 2015, bringing the overall total to 53.7M nodes. PROFIBUS PA accounts now for 9.9M nodes, showing a 10% growth above last year. PROFINET installed nodes grew from 9.8M to 12.8M in 2015. This 30% increase in a span of 1 year also validates the trend of real-time Ethernet requirements for industrial applications. Thus, the topic of Industrie 4.0 / Industrial Internet of Things was a significant part of the presentation. Participants were very interested in this topic as they were looking into how they would future-proof their manufacturing.

Mr. Arasu Thanigai, Secretary of PI-SEA, presented integration strategies of PROFIBUS PA into PROFINET and shared best practices for setting up networks based on his many years of experience with real installations. Mr. Alex To, Senior Sales & Application Manager of Turck Singapore Pte. Ltd., shared how to simplify Input and Output device architectures. He presented a real business case they recently implemented successfully. How safe is PROFISafe? This topic was addressed by Mr. Uwe Schumann, Product Manager for Factory Automation of Siemens Pte Ltd. He discussed machine safety concepts and showed different examples of safety solutions. Mr. Gary Tan, Sales Manager of Leoni, discussed the various cabling variations on structure and installation. He showed cable samples to participants at the micro-fair during breaks.  Link Vue Pte Ltd, representing Softing, also provided the participants with information on Field Diagnostics. Mr. Vidyut Gandhi, Managing Director of Link Vue, included details on field equipment, troubleshooting techniques, and also best practices.

The Seminar in Surabaya, Indonesia is part of a continuing Seminar series in ASEAN countries. Mr. Jorey Guzman said:

“With 54 companies who registered for this event, it shows that there is great interest in the topics of our Seminar. We thank all our members for their efforts in making this a successful event. We will continue our Seminar series this year, with Thailand in September.”

The next Technology Awareness Seminar is scheduled for September 29, 2016 in Rayong, Thailand.


Middle East

A successful ‪PROFIBUS ‪troubleshooting & ‪maintenance ‪course was carried out at the PI-MiddleEast office in Dubai. The training is fully concentrated on those who install and maintain PROFIBUS installations. A complete knowledge package is provided that can be put into practice immediately.PROFIBUS Middle East