Accredited PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International) Competence Centers (PICCs) provide high-quality support for PROFIBUS and PROFINET technologies worldwide. PI is very pleased with the continued strong interest on all the continents in adding to the list of accredited PICCs. In the past three months, three PICCs were established in South America, one in Turkey, one in Canada as well as yet another in Germany. And now in China.
When Fortescue designed and developed their Solomon Hub mine in the Hamersley Ranges, the scale of the project was impressive. At the time of their creation, the Firetail and Kings ore mines (together making up the Solomon Hub) created the world's largest PROFINET Industrial Ethernet network. This network played an enormous role in productivity and efficiency improvements.
News from around the world includes a new PI Competence Center and PI Training Center in Argentina, events in Brazil, and a Profibus & Profinet Day in Italy.
IO-Link Community Japan leader, Mr. Shinichi Motoyosh, announced the start of the IO-Link Community Japan in April 2017 to promote the industrial digital communication technology, IO-Link. And it also starts the “IO-Link experience course” from June 2017 at Industrial Open-Network Laboratory of Research Institute for Science and Engineering in Waseda University, as one of the field communication seminars.
PI Denmark conducted a special conference on May 18, 2017 with PI Chairman Karsten Schneider as key speaker on the subject "PROFINET and IO-Link - Communication Technology for Industrie 4.0."
PI Middle East has just completed a series of PROFIBUS and PROFINET certification training classes throughout the Middle East with a class on Food and Bev scheduled for September. PI UK has free PROFIBUS, PROFINET, and IO-Link classes scheduled for the fall. PI North America continues its free PROFINET one-day training classes with a total of 17 to be completed in 2017. PI has scheduled a PROFIsafe Certified Designer Training for October 10 - 12, 2017.
The UK had two events, one focusing on factory automation and one on process automation. In the Netherlands, an Industrial Ethernet event themed "Linking People, Companies, and Machinery" was held.
Poland is honored to be a partner country on the Hannover Fair this year. Significant growth of the Polish economy in recent years has resulted in an increased number of foreign investments. Practically every branch of industry is benefiting from the use of industrial networks, and the vast majority of those networks are Profibus and Profinet.
