Industry news

PROFIsafe and IO-Link pass the 10 million mark

More than 2.2 million PROFIsafe nodes were brought to market in 2018, growth of nearly 25% compared to the previous year. More than 3.3 million IO-Link nodes were brought to market, more than 40% growth rate.

PROFIBUS & PROFINET INTERNATIONAL (PI) has concluded its annual count of the installed base of devices with interfaces using communication technologies from PI. As in previous years, the numbers from 2018 indicate a very positive trend.

PROFINET Growth

In the case of PROFINET, the 5.1 million devices brought to market in 2018 represent an increase of 0.6 million over the previous year’s record. By the end of 2018, a total of 26 million PROFINET devices were working to automate production. The annual number of PROFIBUS devices installed – 2.4 million – even rose slightly as compared to the previous year. Reaching nearly 61 million, the overall number passed yet another threshold. The total of the two annual values of 7.5 million also represents an all-time high number.

PROFIBUS’s trend in process automation also remains stable. Though the annual value reached in 2018 – 0.8 million – was slightly less than the previous year, a total of 12.3 million PROFIBUS devices (i. e. 20% of the overall total of 61 million) are now being used in process systems.

PROFIsafe

With 2.2 million PROFIsafe nodes brought to market in 2018, which corresponds to growth of nearly 25% as compared to the previous year, PROFIsafe also saw its highest annual gain ever. In total, PROFIsafe passed the 10-million hurdle by a considerable margin with its 11 million nodes.

IO-Link

As in the previous years, IO-Link likewise achieved a record in two regards in 2018. On the one hand, 3.3 million IO-Link nodes were brought to market, which amounts to growth of more than 40% compared to last year. An overall count of 11.4 million IO-Link nodes means that the 10-million hurdle was passed by a considerable margin here as well.

Development direction

For Karsten Schneider, Chairman of PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI), these fgures confrm the validity of decisions made over the past few years with regard to the development direction of PI technologies.

“This motivates us to continue with resolve and to implement step by step the strategy

3.3 million IO-Link nodes were brought to market in 2018. The overall count amounts to 11.4 million IO-Link nodes, and means that the 10-million hurdle was passed by a considerable margin as well.

With its 11.2 million units, PROFIsafe passed the 10-million hurdle. With 2.2 million PROFIsafe nodes brought to market in 2018, this corresponds to growth of nearly 25% as compared to the previous year.

presented at the PI Konferenz in Frankfurt (March 2019)," Schneider said in a press release. "Record-setting PI Konferenz attendance also confrms the broad acceptance of our technologies today and the trust in our organization to make the right decisions in the future as well, which in turn will be a crucial element for the economic success of our member companies," he added.

News by PROFIBUS & PROFINET International

(PI).

Cloud-based platforms to drive factory simulation software

The market for factory simulation software products will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 11% to reach US $4.1 billion for over 172,000 users in 2030.

ACCORDING TO GLOBAL TECH MARKET ADVISORY frm, ABI Research, sales for factory simulation software products include software that uses computer modeling to analyze how production might work in any given factory or situation and implement virtual commissioning to test proposed changes and upgrades before they are put into effect.

“Today, many manufacturing enterprises have started to use simulation software, but most have not yet realized the added benefts of using simulation software as part of a larger smart manufacturing platform or to virtually test other new technologies,” said Nick Finill, Principal Analyst at ABI Research. “Cloudbased platforms can provide a similar interface for simulations from the different points of view of process engineers, operations support managers, plant engineers, and control engineers. Companies can assign user roles so THE SPECIFICATION WORK FOR PROFINET WITH TSN has been completed and the three parts of the document are available for download on the PI website. Manufacturers and users alike can interoperably implement the advantages offered by TSN, such as future-proof IEEE Ethernet technology with higher bandwidth, deterministics, fexible network confguration and large range of chips.

The user interface remains unchanged, i.e., the use of IO data, diagnostics and parameterization, since the new TSN mechanisms act largely on the underlying communication layers. This makes it easier for users to get started with the new technology.

Through the dedicated work of the experts from many companies, the specifcation was prepared in just over a year in an intensive development and review process. The open discussion and many years of experience of the expert contributors in the respective working groups ensure an accurate and complete technical description.

In addition, both the initial implementations as well as concepts for the certifcation were created early on in parallel. The stability of the specification could thereby be tested that engineers only see and modify the details and information that they need for their job or level of expertise, and engineers in different locations can work on different parts of the same model. This increases data security, speeds up the simulation process, and makes the product easier to use.”

Vendors that provide or partner with larger smart manufacturing platforms control the largest chunks of the market share. In discrete industries, this means Dassault Systèmes with its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, Siemens with its Digital Industries portfolio and Rockwell Automation with Arena and its partnership with PTC control most of the market. In process industries, AVEVA, AspenTech, and Siemens control most of the market.

The automotive industry represents the largest opportunity globally, with US$1.8 billion in factory simulation software revenues and also demonstrated at trade fairs. For easy understanding of the functionality, a guideline is also available that clearly explains the fundamentals of TSN.

The PROFINET specifcation 2.4 and IEEE specifications are necessary fundamentals above all for the developers of the basic technology of hardware and frmware. The device manufacturers then simply use the corresponding stacks or modules and no longer forecasted for 2030. In fact, automotive represents the largest opportunity in every country except for South Korea, where electronics manufacturing has a slight edge.

“Automotive manufacturing leads the way for many transformative technologies and therefore has a higher demand to simulate those technologies. It also has an edge on most industries in sheer size and organizational transformation, with more holistic solution deployments due to crossfunctional technology transformation teams. Vendors of factory simulation software and larger platforms specifcally target these teams for growth opportunities,” concludes Finill.

These findings are from ABI Research’s Industrial Virtualization, Visualization, and Simulation Market Tracker market data report.

Specifcation of PROFINET with TSN complete

The goal set by PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International) to integrate TSN as additional Layer 2 technology in the PROFINET architecture has been reached with the current PROFINET specifcation V2.4.

News by ABI Research.

need to understand the details or even implement them themselves. As a result, device manufacturers can simply expand their existing PROFINET portfolio with TSN. Of course, the specification will continue to be maintained in the familiar annual maintenance process so that new customer requirements, experiences from the feld or technological developments can be integrated in an open and easy-to-understand way. This process supports the “living” PROFINET standard, which has proven itself a million times over and is still developed continuously, according to user needs and compatibly.

News report provided by PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International).