Message on buttons at the PLCopen stand.
It's the end of a busy Thursday at Hannover. I'm told that once there were twice as many attendees as now, but it's still very busy. I'd wager that there were as many people at the Phoenix Contact booth party this evening (rumored to be as many as 1,500) as there were at the control portion of National Manugacturing Week this year. (I could be wrong, it's happened before, but I doubt it.)
Yesterday a small group of American editors traveled down to Salzburg, Austria to visit the corporate headquarters of B&R Automation. This company, though still privately owned, is poised to leave the "mittlestand" companies behind. Its 2005 revenues were 190 million Euro (close to $250 million) having grown consistently over the past several years. The goal is continued growth at 15 percent. Several people that I've talked to estimate that it is about 25 percent larger than Beckhoff a compeny with similar product suite and ambitions. B&R shows excellent technology in the integration of logic and control. Its current target market is OEM machine builders, for which it has developed an excellent understanding. I also like the way it is developing North American distribution. It will be one company that will offer an excellent alternative (or second choice) for companies who are now Rockwell Automation customers in North America or Siemens custoemers in Europe. Asia is a wide open market currently, and things could get interesting there.
Another company to watch is Phoenix Contact. In a one-hour tour of most of the booth with Larry Komarek, I saw many good products. Most of what they showed me today was in their line of Ethernet switches. Too much to write in a blog, the interesting things were a new line of unmanaged switches that contain some intelligence yet drives the price point down. Also some that include fiber optic connections along with Cat 5. Further, there are switches that include Bluetooth to wireless access points. Yet more, there are unmanaged switches embedded in some interface and I/O blocks--something that would eliminate a separate component and the resulting wiring. That's all not to mention the motor tri-cycle that uses Phoenix Contact terminal blocks for its wiring because of their resistance to vibration problems.
You need to remember also that Phoenix has a robust control offering. It also could be a competitor for a piece of Rockwell or Siemens business. So those of you who have been telling me that factory automation suppliers will dwindle down to two may be surprised. Maybe I'll hear from GE Fanuc or Schneider Automation on this subject, but it's worth noting that Schneider's booth was not in the automation hall (with the top two exhibitors in terms of space being Siemens and Phoenix Contact, each with a three-storey "stand".
One thing to note especially for those of you who build machines or otherwise use machine-mounted logic components--both Phoenix Contact and Woodhead showed innovative power wiring schemes that should really be a boost to your wiring efforts.
I unfortunately heard many things that I cannot report (for various reasons), but one was from my discussion with Jim O'Laughlin of Sick. You will hear about it in a couple of months. But Jim took some time to explain current trends in safety networking and products. And safety is definitely a trend. Good thing. The May issue of Automation World focuses on that topic. In the same vein, Eelco van der Wahl of PLCopen explained the organization's new Safety Function blocks. More later when I can devote more space.
3:46:39 PM 
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