Articles and News

Announced at the 2018 ARC Forum, FieldComm Group and the OPC Foundation presented their joint vision for creating a protocol independent, process automation device information model (PA-DIM) specification to implement the requirements of the NAMUR Open Architecture (NOA).

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com An open system can impact all phases of a project from inception, through its entire lifecycle including: project design, configuration, operations, and lifecycle maintenance in order to create tremendous savings and value.

Resembling more a bustling city than a trade fair, the 71st Hannover Messe was very busy and chock full of energy and innovation this year, with over 200,000 attendees from 75 countries. Focusing on the theme 'Integrated Industry – Connect & Collaborate', the Digital Factory was front and center.

While serial bus systems will continue to play an important role in the future, solutions based on Industrial Ethernet are becoming increasingly common with Industry 4.0 applications. The focus is less on cable measurements, signal levels or signal shapes, but in the case of standards such as PROFINET, utilization and the greatest possible availability of the networks are the focus of interest.

The office will be PROCENTEC’s fourth office after Wateringen (the Netherlands), Karlsruhe (Germany) and Brescia (Italy). It will focus on sales activities in the first place, but also hopes to become an official Training Center in the UK in the long run.

PROCENTEC will provide training courses for PROFIBUS and PROFINET on various itsme-locations in the Netherlands. The offer includes free product training, Troubleshooting & Maintenance training and PI International Certified Engineer and Installer courses.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) has been a hot topic at several conferences over the last 18 months. With the promise of connecting all devices in a single unifying network from sensor to enterprise, this article will explore why TSN is on the tip of everyone’s tongue.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Given the number of vendors that have introduced electronic marshalling products, the value of electronic marshalling is clear. With Siemens’ entry into the world of open automation solutions, the value of these solutions should become increasingly clear as well.

Phoenix Contact, Renesas, and Siemens will host several one-day training workshops where attendees will have the opportunity to create a PROFINET device in less than three hours with the Renesas TPS-1

With the new coupler, users can effectively achieve communication between differing parts of a line on separate networks, increasing transparency and integration.

The option allows PLCs running the Modbus industrial automation protocol to connect to Alicat instruments over Ethernet cable.

By Andrew McIntyre, Texas Instruments At the core of Industry 4.0 is the need for reliable communication networks. These networks are closely tied to real-time operational needs; therefore, they must be able to handle information in a deterministic and redundant manner.

By John Rinaldi, Real Time Automation In their latest series of announcements, it’s clear that OPC UA is key to Microsoft’s strategy of entering and dominating the factory floor through its Azure cloud services.

Comtrol’s IO-Link Masters are available in three industrial Ethernet protocols: EtherNet/IP, Modbus TCP and PROFINET IO, which are all capable of running OPC UA with MultiLink.

The target is to offer TSN as firmware upgrade to the users of netX technologies. Hilscher developed a firmware upgrade for TSN which can turn a standard real-time ethernet device into a TSN enabled device.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Connecting the manufacturing plant floor with the business enterprise through a single, open network has been an elusive goal in today's automation industry. Many industrial automation people believe that TSN will become a high volume, low cost technology with adoption by automotive and consumer industries

Besola is the Senior VP of Global Sales for Softing. The Board voted unanimously to approve Mr. Besola’s nomination, and he will attend his first board meeting next month.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Keeping consistent with Internet of Things and Industry 4.0 concepts and architectures, Turck has embedded PLC control into their traditional products, thereby extending capabilities to be a control company.

The new specification builds on an initial announcement at the 2015 SPS/IPC/Drives fair, where both network organizations promised to maximize the transparency between the two protocols.

Carpenter is responsible for leading GE's automation controls strategy. Prior to this position, Carpenter was Chief of Product Strategy for GE Intelligent Platforms’ Software and Services business.