At the beginning of the year it’s a time to reflect a bit on the year gone by and look ahead to the new year. In 2016 we watched the continuing evolution of the concepts of Industrie 4.0 and the...

PI North America in cooperation with the PROFI Interface Center announces that their free PROFINET one-day training classes will be held in 17 cities in 2017. Los Angeles, CA January 31, 2017...

The next PROFIsafe Certified Designer Training takes place March 7-9, 2017 in Karlsruhe, Germany. The class will be conducted in the English language. The huge dissemination of PROFIsafe technology...

There are a lot more than ten resources for PROFINET, but here is a selection to provide a good starting point. 1. Marketing Flyer: PROFINET A brief, high-level overview of PROFINET.  Topics such as...

PI offers many different social media channels: blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and even the old standby, RSS. Here are some examples and time-saving opportunities to participate. RSS RSS feeds...

Should you use a managed switch or an unmanaged switch with PROFINET? YES! Yes, you should use either a managed or an unmanaged Ethernet switch with PROFINET. Unmanaged Switches An unmanaged switch...

Hunter Harrington, PROFINET Consulting Engineer, of the PROFI Interface Center in Johnson City, Tennessee discusses the importance of PROFINET device naming plus rules and caveats in today’s...

Diagnosing Industrial Communications Networks Today industrial communications networks are part of the fabric of most manufacturing plants globally. The upkeep of these networks is crucial to smooth...

Regional PI Associations in Australia, China, Middle East, and the UK have news in this issue. PI Australia looks back at 2016 and ahead to 2017. PI China appeared in the exhibition of the 2016...

New and updated products include Belden’s micro distributed control unit, Mynah’s DeltaV VIM2 module, a Siemens PROFINET to PROFIBUS proxy, Turck IO-Link Master and RFID modules, and Wachendorff’s...

Click on a headline to learn more New Fiber Optic Repeater for PROFIBUS Networks Belden Inc. has released a new version of its PROFIBUS fiber optic repeater. The OZD Profi 12M G22 allows PROFIBUS...

Did you know that IO-Link does away with the great variety of signals and interfaces on the sensor/actuator level once and for all? Naturally, sensors and actuators covering a wide range of...

Renovation of the blast furnace at ArcelorMittal Méditerranée A digital giant in a human affair In response to exponential market demand, the annual production capacity at the ArcelorMittal site in...

In the early days of Ethernet, collisions on the network prevented its use in deterministic industrial applications. If two stations tried to transmit at the same time, a collision would result. The...

Process protection by means of Asset Management with PROFINET As the growth of PROFINET continues, new customer requirements for additional Asset Management functions have been incorporated. Added...

To continue a practice-oriented further development of PROFIBUS and PROFINET, a deep understanding of users’ requirements with respect to Industrie 4.0 scenarios is needed. For this reason, use...

Today, the field devices in processing plants, flow control, pressure and temperature, for example, but also the actuator technology are controlled either by 4-20 mA signals or by fieldbuses – such...

The SPS/IPC/Drives Show just closed its doors and I must say it was an exciting show. Of course, Industrie 4.0 and IIoT dominated the fair from the 30 thousand foot view, but the terms tend to be...