PI Competence Centers
PICCs are centers of technical expertise. There are currently 64 PICCs in 30 countries, a virtual guarantee of global support wherever you happen to be located. PICCs offer technical support to anyone who needs it and they play an essential role in supporting developers of PROFIBUS and PROFINET devices and installations.
PI Training Centers
PITCs support developers and end-users in learning about and using PROFIBUS and PROFINET. They deliver formalized educational sessions aimed at raising the knowledge levels of engineers in several important areas of PROFIBUS and PROFINET. 32 PITCs around the world deliver a variety of training classes and in different ways. However, all operate to a consistent standard that is audited by PI to ensure a standard quality of performance.
PI Test Labs
PITLs are test centers authorized by PI to execute certification tests on PROFIBUS and PROFINET devices. There are currently 10 across the world in major industrial countries. Certification plays an important role in quality control and delivers peace of mind for end-users. It ensures conformance with standards and it underpins operational performance and interoperability. It also ensures freedom of choice of supply.
2018 PICC/PITC/PITL Meeting
From June 4 – 7, 2018 the annual PICC/PITC/PITL Meeting took place in the Netherlands. More than 70 representatives of the PI Competence Centers, Trainings Centers, and Test Laboratories held various meetings in The Hague. Within the three meeting days of the PICCs and PITCs there were presentations about various “Industrie 4.0” topics:
- TSN
- OPC UA
- APL
- PROFIdrive
Furthermore, the new PICCs Utthunga Technologies (India), AUTEX (Argentina) and Emikon (Turkey) gave short presentations about their companies and activities. It’s exciting to see support for PI technologies grow around the world.
A highlight of this year’s meeting was the TSN Demo as well as the Smartboard. They are known from this year’s Hannover Messe and were used for the presentations about TSN and OPC UA.
After the PICC/PITC Meeting, the PITLs held their meeting on Wednesday afternoon. Furthermore, there were a PROFINET Certification and Tester Training on Thursday morning. All in all the PICC/PITC/PITL Meeting was a complete success. Many thanks to PROCENTEC for hosting this meeting -it was a pleasure to meet in The Hague!
See you next year!