Industrial automation vendor Rockwell Automation and Panduit have , a maker of wiring, network cabling and communication products, systems and accessorie, have expanded their long-standing product-referencing relationship into a strategic alliance focused on EtherNet/IP.
Together, the two companies “focused on providing optimized physical network infrastructure solutions, effective collaboration between automation and IT, and integrated solutions and services for customers globally,” said John McDermott, senior vice president, Global Sales and Marketing, Rockwell Automation. We are “driving integrated solutions that help companies reduce risk, improve reliability, and successfully implement EtherNet/IP solutions and architectures,” he added.
The two companies also plan to work with companies like Cisco to help customers integrate logical system architectures with physical deployments, throughout the life cycle of a project: from initial design, maintenance and operations throughout the entire enterprise.
“A strong alignment of Panduit and Rockwell Automation technologies and architectures simplifies network design and integration for our common customers,” said Tom Donovan, president of Panduit. “Our combined capabilities reduce risk, operational costs, and time-to-market.”
Initial emphasis of the collaboration will be placed on integration of physical implementation, employing best practices and industry standards, providing education and services to facilitate manufacturing and IT convergence, and enabling successful architecture deployment.
“Our mutual customers need a robust, secure and future-ready Ethernet physical infrastructure for their industrial environments,” said McDermott. “Together, we can now offer comprehensive logical to physical plantwide infrastructure solutions and architectures leveraging EtherNet/IP to provide the level of performance, manageability and security required for today’s industrial networks.”
Users can get more information on the partnership offerings at the Rockwell Automation Fair, being held in Philadelphia Nov. 5 and 6, 2012 via a YouTube Automation Collaboration Demo video.
