PI Konferenz Sees Record Attendance
The 2019 PI Konferenz, which was held in Frankfurt/Germany at the House of Logistics and Mobility (HOLM) on March 19 and 20, set a new record for attendance. More than 340 interested persons took up the invitation to learn about the PI technologies of today and tomorrow.
According to Chairman Karsten Schneider, the main question of the PI community is how to develop a vision for the future which builds upon the infrastructure we have today, i.e. the more than 86 million PROFIBUS and PROFINET nodes installed in the field. “The task now is to transfer this tried-and-tested technology to the world of Industry 4.0.”
Consequently, every important topic was covered at the conference, from the combination of PROFINET and OPC UA to the supplementing of PROFINET to include TSN technologies to work being carried out on the APL (Advanced Physical Layer) and vertical & horizontal integration. This shows that PI has already begun to work on the comprehensive spectrum of topics for ultimately making the Industrial Internet of Things a reality.
It became clear here, for example, that semantics and information models will play a decisive role in the future. “Industry 4.0 concepts won’t even be possible at all until the data is understood by everyone,” said Schneider in reference to the current challenge. PI is not only working closely together with eCl@ss, but is developing application-specific information models in cooperation with the OPC Foundation as well. Against this backdrop, corresponding companion specifications which put standards in the hands of users on the path to the world of Industry 4.0 are currently being devised. These specifications were also presented at the PI conference, including a new white paper on the topic of security. This was rounded out with the start of activities relating to 5G. At 55 presentations and discussions with experts, both users and manufacturers were able to get concrete information on necessary and sensible steps in development.
IO-Link Group Belgium at Indumation 2019 Fair
The 5th edition of Indumation.be, the trade fair for industrial automation, optimization, and innovation that took place from 6 to 8 February 2019 in Kortrijk Xpo (Belgium), was a successful event. Indumation 2019 attracted over 10,000 attendees. Among the exhibitors was IO-Link Group Belgium, which had saw many visitors to its stand who wanted more information about the technology and the various possibilities it offers for ‘smart communication’.
IO-Link Group Belgium thanks all visitors and invites everyone to workshops in Ghent on 7 May and in Louvain-La-Neuve on 14 May.
More information at: www.io-link.be/events
New Advisory Board Member of the PNO
As part of this year’s annual members meeting of the PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation e.V. (PNO) on April 01, 2019, the PNO’s Board of Directors reported on the technological development, marketing activities and budget of 2018 and presented corresponding plans for the current year.
The election of a new Advisory Board member was also held, as Uwe Gräff (Harting) is no longer able to hold this office due to a lack of time resulting from his appointment to the Harting Managing Board. Frank Welzel (Harting) was elected as a new member of the Advisory Board upon the recommendation of the Board of Directors and Advisory Board at the annual members meeting. Frank Welzel is Director of Global Product Management at HARTING Electronics GmbH.
Due to his assuming of a new responsibility at Siemens, Dirk Vielsäcker is no longer available to head the “CB PROFINET” and “C1 Marketing” Committees. For this reason, the Advisory Board appointed Steffen Stang (Siemens AG) as the new head of these Committees at its most recent session upon the recommendation of the Board of Directors.
The Board of Directors and the Advisory Board are looking forward to excellent cooperation with the new Advisory Board members and would like to thank Uwe Gräff and Dirk Vielsäcker for their many years of work and plethora of ideas which have always given a positive direction to new topics of the PNO and wish them all the best in the future.