Automate to innovate

Increasingly, companies are embracing some form of automation to provide synergy between their offices and manufacturing facilities. Enter industrial Ethernet as a way to reduce cost, broaden access to information and improve productivity. But this requires networking products that are rugged, customisable to individual circumstances and cost effective, yet capable of connecting, communicating information and controlling almost any type of equipment in an industrial environment. To assist remote monitoring and managing, manufacturers can place their equipment on an existing area LAN or on the internet using industrial device networking. Ethernet and the TCP/IP protocol have found acceptance within the industrial automation sector and major advances have turned it into a powerful communications tool with obvious attractions. So far, so good, but what do system integrators need to be aware when specifying industrial Ethernet based systems? Spectre (Communications) sales director John Jones advises that you first consider which company is behind the standard and whether it is prominent in the sector in which you need to be interoperable.