Demonstrating its readiness to take part in one of the biggest trends to sweep across industry in the past decade, PI North America, the organization supporting Profibus and Profinet technologies in North America, officially announced its \u201cProfinet of Things\u201d theme during its annual general assembly meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, last week.<\/p>\n
\u201cProfinet has come to the forefront as a critical piece in the Industry 4.0 and Industrial Internet of Things puzzle, as evidenced by Industry 4.0 naming Profinet and OPC UA as its preferred communication protocols,\u201d said Michael Bowne, executive director of PI North America. \u201cThat\u2019s why a theme [for us] going forward will be the \u2018Profinet of Things,\u2019 revolving around data access, uptime, and openness. It\u2019s also what we\u2019ve seen here at our general assembly meeting this year. End-users are interacting with OEMs and automation vendors and the fascinating discussions highlight not only the breadth of the protocol, but also its depth.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those familiar with PI North America, the 2015 general assembly meeting marked a time of change, as Mike Bryant, the organization\u2019s long-time executive director, announced he would be moving into an executive director emeritus role as Bowne transitions into the PI North America executive director\u2019s job. Commenting on the change, Bowne said, \u201cOn a personal note, it’s a great honor to begin transitioning into the executive director role. Mike Bryant is a driving force behind the adoption of Profibus and Profinet in North America and around the world. I look forward to his continued guidance and oversight as we continue to grow the organization in the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the meeting, Bryant noted that the technology training sessions held by PI North America reflect a clear industry trend toward Ethernet. Seventy-nine percent of the people signing up for training this year signed up for Profinet training, meaning that only 21 percent signed up for Profibus training, reinforcing the notion that industry is shifting quickly toward Ethernet as the de facto plant network of choice in addition to its requirement in Industry 4.0 and IIoT initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith the entire automation world focusing on Industry 4.0 and IIoT,\u201d Bryant said, \u201cPI North America looks forward to introducing more support and education of Profinet without abandoning the installed base of Profibus products. We have to focus on where Profinet fits into IIoT, but we will never abandon our Profibus legacy business, we\u2019ve got a whole lot of installed devices out there that we will support for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Demonstrating its readiness to take part in one of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n