SPS fair just closed its doors and the year is coming to an end. It was an exciting one for PI. We made lots of progress in our working groups and in technology adoption. I invite you to read further in this issue of PROFINEWS to learn more. –– Karsten Schneider, PI Chairman

The PROFIsafe for OPC UA collaboration began at SPS IPC Drives 2017. In less than a year, the joint working group has managed to draft a review version of the specification “Safety over OPC UA Based on PROFIsafe” for controller-to-controller communication.

In close cooperation, and within the framework of a joint working group, experts from PI and the OPC Foundation have specified a solution for presenting PROFINET data in the OPC UA object model. Additionally, work on an "OPC UA for IO-Link" companion specification has begun.

The intelligent manufacturing networks of digital factories will only become reality with machine-processable, standardized information. PI sees its role in creating the necessary basis for this fact, especially in view of Industry 4.0. Learn about the collaboration of eCl@ss and PI and how it enables consistent data models.

A proof of concept demonstration of the PROFINET@OPC UA Companion Specification will be shown at SPS/IPC/Drives 2018, and is scheduled for release at Hannover Fair 2019. It is based on the "Facet Modeling" concept to help enable the movement of semantic information.