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.
Did you know that IO-Link is backward compatible with binary sensors? The IO-Link communication interface is standardized in international standard IEC 61131-9. One of the initial goals of the multi-company standardization initiative was to create an interface that takes into consideration the existing architectures and the typical connection level in the lower field level. The point-to-point connection familiar there was simply taken over in IO-Link, complete with the standard cabling.
A ten-year old white paper entitled “A Guide to Troubleshooting PROFIBUS PA Networks” is the most downloaded document. In the guide, author James Powell promotes a systematic approach that makes network set-up and trouble-shooting easy.
PROFINET stalwart Phoenix Contact’s Middletown, Pa., plant was named Plant Engineering magazine’s Top Plant of 2015. HARTING announces “The HARTING Knowledge Center” app, a content hub of all of HARTING’s educational materials, including white papers, FAQs, videos, brochures, and more.
Why have an entire section of PROFINEWS dedicated to Regional News? It matters for three reasons. First, it shows the strength of the PI organization on a global scale. Second, if you are a device vendor, it encourages you to explore other such markets with the expectation of local support. And finally, if you are an end-user, it assures that if you start operations in another country there are already experts in place.
