Machines in the printing industry have many interfaces to the office world. Plate setters, punch benders, and the actual printing machine must be networked together and connected to the system of the print shop. Instead of conventional point-to-point wiring, remote Profinet I/O modules collect the signals directly on the stacker and bring them to the box PC controller in the control cabinet. Transparency, diagnostics and remote maintenance are easy because it's all based on Ethernet.

A leading integrator of factory automation and robotics solutions selected the Comtrol DeviceMaster UP 2-port 2E for a production line cell for forging spindles. In this application, laser markers communicating via TCP/IP were used to apply a serial number to the spindles. The commands were sent to the marker through a PLC running Profinet.