PI sponsors a range of classes: free one-day training classes, PROFIBUS & PROFINET Certified Network Engineer classes, and the newly created PROFINET Developer Classes. Globally, there is a five-city series in France featuring PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and wireless PROFINET and in Germany there's a plugfest.
In North America, additional cities have been confirmed for no-charge PROFINET one-day training classes and additional Certified Network Engineer classes are announced. Free PROFIBUS and PROFINET training is coming to the UK. PI Australia formalizes its Automation Innovation Summit. In Germany IO-Link, PROFIBUS, and PROFIsafe training is scheduled.
To understand our goals for 2016, it helps to look back on 2015, a year of milestones reached and surpassed. Some involved big numbers, like passing the 10 million node count for PROFINET. Others were more intangible, like our broad coverage in the trade press.
Lunch for 1,263 please. In 2015, PI North America fed 1,263 students lunch at the 17 PROFINET one-day training classes. A similar crowd is expected in 2016. Industrie 4.0, Internet of Things, and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are everywhere now, including these PROFINET classes. Additional classes and events include the fee-based PROFIsafe Designer Training coming in March. Become a “Certified PROFIsafe Designer" by passing the tests there.
Often students at the PROFINET one-day training classes wish for a hands-on experience. Given the class sizes, this is not practical. For an in-depth, hands-on class, PI offers Certified Network Engineer classes. read more about these week-long classes. New in North America are customized Developer classes offered by the PIC. These classes are tailored to individual development teams who are adding PROFINET to their product.
HACC, Central Pennsylvania’s Community College, has become the first American school to join Phoenix Contact’s EduNet program. EduNet is an international education network that brings together schools and industry in the field of automation technology. The EduNet program includes donating equipment for the lab. This gives students hands-on access to several Phoenix Contact ILC controller and PROFINET starter kits, the same type of equipment they might use once they graduate and work on the manufacturing floor.
Welcome to the 133rd edition of PROFINEWS! Having just wrapped up our 21st General Assembly Meeting here in Scottsdale, AZ, I can say with confidence that our organization is stronger than ever. After 21 years it's exciting to see so much new development happening, and we're still pushing the envelope to remain innovative in this space.
Michael Bryant introduced this issue of PROFINEWS with a hint about PI North America’s recent General Assembly Meeting (GAM). Michael Bowne in the article immediately above took the introduction to the PROFINET of Things at the GAM and distilled them into a webcast. Carl Henning in the PROFIblog is portioning out an informal reporting of the event. Here are the highlights from the meeting.
