Updated 8/13:
Mike Bryant, executive director of PI North America (www.us.profibus.com), says,"In Rome, at the PI meeting earlier this year, it was decided that we should have one identity throughout the world." Other Regional PI Associations (RPAs) will now have consistent branding throughout the world. The branding will cite PI and the name of the country in the logo. PI has 27 different RPAs throughout the world, including PI North America. Others RPAs include Spain, Italy, Switzerland and India, among others.
At its general assembly meeting, Aug. 3-5, in Scottsdale, Ariz., PI North America also announced an additional and new Web site centered around Profinet, called www.allthingsprofinet.com. The Web site will target control engineers and automation product developers, among others. The organization now has two Web sites to promote Profibus and Profinet, the other is the original site, www.us.profibus.com.
Node counts
The 2010 General Assembly Meeting provided an opportunity to discuss the current state of the organization and updates on node implementation and profiles. Jorg Freitag, deputy chairman, noted 10 percent growth in 2009 for Profibus nodes, with an estimated at 31.4 million total installed nodes worldwide. Through June 2010, the figure is now at 33.3 million nodes. A network node, defined by IMS Research (www.imsresearch.com), based in Wellingborough, England, is a single connection to a network, regardless of the number of other connections to that node. On the Profinet side, a total of 2.1 million nodes have been installed worldwide through 2009.
Regarding methodology surrounding the IMS Research on installed nodes, a notary is hired to conduct research on different Industrial Ethernet standards and the market share numbers are based on estimates via surveys with manufacturers. For more discussion on node market share, visit blog posts made by Gary Mintchell, Editor in Chief, Automation World and Carl Henning, Deputy Director, PI North America, earlier this year. Good stuff.
Other notes of interest were a review of the new Profi profiles from the last year. Two completed profiles are the Profibus PA Profile V3.02A, released this year, and the Profienergy Profile. The energy profile allows for a plant line to be shut down completely when a "break period" has been designated or when the line is experiencing a "break period." The profile avoids custom engineering of the specific line via the programmable logic controller (PLC) and focuses mostly on factory automation, the organization adds.
The total membership number for PI North America is at 126 companies, which include ABB, Anixter, Balluf, Belden, Grid Connect and Siemens, among others. Since 2008, 21 new members have joined PI North America.
IMS Research www.imsresearch.comPI North America
www.us.profibus.com
www.allthingsprofinet.com
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