Celebrating its 20-year anniversary, PNO and its international organization, PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI), held the 2009 spring press conference not as usual at the Hannover Messe trade fair but in Karlsruhe, the birthplace of PNO. The PNO executive board and representatives of Germany’s largest automobile manufacturers met with the press to take a look at PROFINET’s current development and present the most recent innovations.

Node count 2008: expectations surpassed

First up was the annual node count, in which PNO compiles an official record of the number of sales of PROFINET end devices and adds them to the existing number of installed nodes. The growth displayed by PROFINET exceeded expectations: the number of nodes increased from 1.14 million at the end of 2007 to 1.6 million at the end of 2008 – a growth rate of 40 percent.

Automotive industry as the key driver for success

One of the reasons why PROFINET has evolved into the world’s leading Industrial Ethernet standard was on the podium during the press conference: in 2004, the automation initiative of German automobile manufacturers (AIDA) declared its support for PROFINET and announced that its members would use PROFINET in their production automation systems. The review offered by the representatives of Audi, BMW, Daimler, and Volkswagen was also very positive. PROFINET solutions have since become the standard for new systems in these companies.

Next challenge: energy management

The catalog of expectations, however, is expanding at the same rate as the utilization of PROFINET. PNO is therefore currently addressing the subject of energy management in PROFINET. This work will culminate in the PROFIenergy profile, which is due to be published at the end of this year. PNO and PROFINET have thus taken up one of the greatest challenges facing companies in the 21st century: economic success on the basis of sustainable business processes.