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Tuesday, February 19, 2008 |
I wrote recently about companies joining the Profibus parade. Another new entrant is National Instruments. It has released PCI and PXI Profibus interfaces that can be used as master or slave devices.
NI has also released version 8.5 of LabView Control Design and Simulation Module that allows engineers and scientists to analyze open loop model behavior, design closed-loop controllers, simulate systems, and create real-time implementations. The latest version introduces analytical proportional integral derivative (PID) and model predictive control to multivariable systems.
11:01:35 AM 
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I suddenly received a bunch of press releases about the OPC Training Institute. Was this on the "up and up?" Turns out it is. In the time-honored way of starting new businesses, a couple of guys left Matrikon and started a vendor-neutral OPC training company in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The company says in its release that vendor-neutral training makes sense for OPC, since the technology by its very nature is designed to tie together products from a variety of suppliers. The company's training is said to emulate vendor-neutral environments, offer industry-approved accreditation, conduct multi-platform evaluation, information on installation and troubleshooting and develop architecture recommendations.
According to Randy Kondor, president of OPCTI, "We focus on delivering OPC education that is independent of any vendors. The Certified OPC Professional course supplies end-users with the knowledge necessary to secure the success of projects that use OPC."
In addition, the company has announced with Kepware Technologies that it will use Kepware's OPC server technology, KEPServerEx as its preferred demonstration product for use in OPC hands-on training.
In addition, Kepware both endorses and promotes OPCTI activities and provides demonstration products and documentation to OPCTI for use in all training activities worldwide.
"The OPC Training Institute is an excellent new venture, dedicated to promoting OPC standards and creating Certified OPC Professionals," said Roy Kok, VP of Sales and Marketing for Kepware. "They deliver a valuable service to this industry and we are pleased to help them support the spread of OPC technology awareness around the globe."
"Kepware and the OPC Training Institute are doing a wonderful job in proving the benefits of OPC technology and expanding adoption around the world," said Thomas Burke, President of the OPC Foundation. "Kepware is also an early adopter of OPC-UA technology and will play an important role in delivering our newest standards to the market. This relationship dramatically expands the reach of OPC and it should be beneficial to OPC users around the globe."
OPC is an industrial connectivity standard that enables process control and manufacturing applications to communicate with each other using an interoperable, reliable and secure connection. Interoperability is apparent due to support by over 3,000 companies with well over 15,000 unique OPC applications.
7:38:44 AM
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This is National Engineers Week. Thanks to Phoenix Contact for bringing that to my attention. In recognition of this week, Phoenix Contact's engineers will work with sixth-grade students from the Middletown (Pa.) Area Middle School in several interactive experiments this week designed to create interest in engineering as a career. The U.S. headquarters of the German company is located in Middletown.
Scott Faulkner, mechanical engineering supervisor at Phoenix Contact, will talk with the students about how his interest in science led to an engineering career. The students will then rotate through a series of engineering experiments including: how a wing lifts an airplane, how a light wind can collapse an auto bridge, how to build an electric motor, how to control the speed of a spinning object simply by shifting its weight, and how to use gravity to prevent objects from falling to the ground.
Jack Nehlig, president of Phoenix Contact USA, said, "Phoenix Contact's 85 years of success are built upon the innovative designs of our engineering staff. Today fewer young people are entering engineering and other
science-related fields, but science and math are crucial to the success
of our society and economy. Our employees want to share their love of
science and math with these students by taking their lessons beyond the
classroom. These experiments show that math and science have fun and
practical applications in our everyday world."
Here's an acknowledgment of the people who organized the activities: Faulkner, Missy Sommer, Brian Linton and Patty Marrero. Engineers contributing to the experiments are Mike Correll, Mike Lacey, Arnold Offner, Nathan Kruis, Chris Kramm, and Aaron Kreider.
I wish all the bean-counters and finance people would read and understand Nehlig's statement. Yes, there's money to be made just trading paper, but unless something gets designed and built, in the end it's all just a house of cards that will lead to inevitable collapse.
7:02:19 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Gary Mintchell.
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