AWL-Techniek is an automated welding and connection-lines machine builder offering scalable safety technology directly on the modules of its M-Line machine platform. Modularity is implemented even down to the IP67 IO-Link and safety blocks.

One of the world’s largest beer manufacturing plants in Bannur, India was experiencing intermittent PROFIBUS communication losses in their packaging division. As is often the case, poor installation practices were found and corrected to bring the line back to 100% productivity.

A large plywood manufacturer in Uttarakhand, India, was experiencing costly downtime due to network errors. After identifying critical issues using a PROFIBUS diagnostics tool, the customer made key installation and design changes to eliminate the errors.

In this article we will cover the details of PROFINET diagnostic concepts and use-cases covered by the PROFINET and OPC UA Companion Specification for mapping diagnostic information from a PROFINET device to OPC UA.

Mostly brownfield operations, upstream oil, and gas production sites require materials, equipment, and delivery systems to work together to produce high rates of utilization. Roughneck Equipment, which provides chemical delivery equipment to oil and gas fracturing operations, uses PROFINET to make it easier to keep utilization rates high.

Everyone’s talking about predictive maintenance. But, when it comes to implementing it in practice, many users often fail because they don’t have access to the right data. Enter: PROFINET and OPC UA. This application story from Audi demonstrates a successful case of preventive maintenance.

Tunnel boring machines are enormous, highly automated, mobile "factories," which can perform all stages of tunnel construction in a single run. A challenge for these machines is the transmission of relevant data from the head to the controller located further back. PROFINET over wireless played a vital role in solving that challenge.