IO-Link has grown exponentially in many areas of industry and is implemented in a large number of products. I’m very confident that IO-Link will see further growth as a neutral PI technology in other areas of application outside of industry as well. The question is heard more often: "Is this device also available with IO-Link?"
On the face of it our Working Groups look pretty similar this year when compared to last year. TSN, Security, APL/SPE, OPC UA, 5G, etc. are familiar terms we say countless times. Behind the scenes though, we’ve become much more specific in implementation in terms of the steps from idea to product.
A new resource page in the Industrie 4.0 section of the PI website describes in detail the new Standard Robot Command Interface and how it relates to PROFINET and PI technologies in general.
Since the initiation of omlox in 2020 its community has grown – so much that omlox can now count more than 1000 followers on its LinkedIn channel. The growing number of like-minded supporters shows us that the idea is catching on amongst others and encourages us to continue with the journey.
Welcome to 2022. With larger and larger amounts of manufacturing data being used at enterprise IT levels, the challenge of easily accessing, collecting, and processing that data is growing. To tackle this challenge, the power of information models has become clear and will be a focus for PI over the coming year.
The goal of extended work occurring on information models is to provide machine-interpretable semantic descriptions for all data provided by products using PI technologies. A white paper is planned to elaborate on the approach using so-called facets.
Sustainability is a topic many companies are engaging with in a major way right now. One key pillar being considered is the efficient use of equipment and resources. Tracking technology for the localization of production parts, tools and mobile machines can greatly contribute to their being used more efficiently.
Despite being unable to meet in person at this year's SPS fair, I am proud to share some exciting news here. Highlights include Module Type Package (MTP) being added to the PI technology portfolio, and the PROFINET Community Stack. There's also news about Security, TSN, and the Standard Robot Interface. Thanks for reading.