Expanded provision of device data agreed.

CADENAS is now the newest member of the Eplan Partner Network. CADENAS Managing Director Terry Jonen and Eplan Managing Director Haluk Menderes signed the new technology partnership agreement in November 2025. The stated goal of the cooperation is the expanded provision of technical device data via the Eplan Data Portal, which will be implemented using a direct interface between the Data Portal and the CADENAS platform 3Dfindit.

Haluk Menderes, Eplan and
CADENAS MD Terry Jonen at SPS 2025.

This technology partnership will make it easier for Eplan users to find the right device data. “CADENAS is a strong partner who will help us considerably extend the range of device data available on the Eplan Data Portal with additional, validated content,” said Eplan Managing Director Haluk Menderes. “For our customers, this cooperation is significant. The connectivity to the CADENAS device database expands our quite comprehensive selection of device data with completely new, sometimes very complex configuration data – for instance for the energy sector.” 

Speaking about the newly sealed deal, CADENAS Managing Director Terry Jonen says, “With the planned connection of 3Dfindit to the Eplan Data Portal, we’re making it easier for engineers to access precise, up-to-date product data and are thereby increasing the added value for our common customers.”

Comprehensive digital device data is indispensable for design engineers. It accelerates project planning and increases efficiency in engineering, making invaluable contributions to greater data consistency. To achieve this, the companies will be developing an interface to the CADENAS portal that users will be able to access via the Eplan Data Portal, meaning directly via the Eplan cloud. Eplan and CADENAS will be working closely together to design the interface, and both companies will be engaging in continued dialogue with component manufacturers.

The advantages for users at a glance:

• Eplan users benefit from a significantly expanded range of data on offer, for instance for complex designs
• Design engineers will have additional options when selecting device data
• Data consistency throughout the entire engineering process also increases

Now that the agreement has been signed, the technical implementation is getting started. In the coming months, both partners will set up technical working groups to define the specific measures with a view to gradually expanding the cooperation. The goal is to validate added value for common customers along the value chain. This involves various topics and industries for instance the energy sector. For Eplan users, this will mean increased depth of data and data consistency.

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@EPLAN_global  @mepaxIntPR #Cadanas #PAuto 

Business fields restructuring announced.

steute Technologies has announced a comprehensive restructuring of its business fields.

The company will now appear on the market with three divisions: Meditec, Leantec and Controltec. These new divisions are the result of a strategic repositioning in order to meet the current demands of the market and to provide a clearer orientation for customers.

• In its Meditec division, steute develops and produces user interfaces for medical devices in the OR and diagnostics. steute also su.pports customers worldwide with the complex approval process for medical products. An additional focus of the Meditec division is the realisation of interoperability according to the concept of Service-oriented Device Connectivity (SDC).

• Leantec is the new division for digital shop floor solutions. With its own "nexy" brand, it facilitates the realisation of intelligent Industry 4.0 communication networks for optimal material flow management. A full service is offered – from planning and implementation to maintenance.

• The Controltec division includes all top-quality switches and sensors for machine and plant engineering from the former business fields Extreme, Automation and Industrial Wireless. All products on the Controltec website are available from its integrated steute Online Shop.

The restructuring of the company and its divisions is accompanied by a new website design in twelve languages. From the new corporate website, which presents the company and its umbrella brand with the claim "Applied Intelligence", visitors can access the individual websites of the three new divisions.

With these changes, .steute is reinforcing its market position and underlining its commitment to innovation, customer orientation and technological excellence.

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@mepaxIntPR #steute #Manufacturing #Pauto #Automation

Chair of body promoting standard for industrial device management.

André Uhl, vice president of technology and architecture for Schneider Electric’s Industrial Automation Business, has received a unanimous vote to serve as the Chairman of the FDT Board of Directors.

André Uhl

The Chairman's primary role is to ensure that the Board of Directors effectively sets and implements the organization’s strategy and governance of the standard. The IEC 62453 standard directly benefits global manufacturing industries with a unified environment for industrial device management supporting brownfield, greenfield and new smart manufacturing initiatives in the process, hybrid, and discrete markets.

Mr. Uhl replaced Lee Lane from Rockwell Automation as chairman due to his departure to a new role. Other board members include Shinji Oda, Yokogawa; Ed Silva, Flowserve Corporation; Rolf Birkhofer, Endress+Hauser; Paul Brooks, Rockwell Automation and Michael Kessler, PACTware.

FDT Group Managing Director Steve Biegacki congratulated André Uhl on his new post. “We appreciate the service Lee Lane provided to our organization. André’s industry expertise in technology and standards supporting the process and factory markets will guide the FDT organization and roadmap focused on promoting open integration and harmonized device management, driving future innovation field to cloud.”

Mr. Uhl has over 20 years of industry experience managing Research & Development (R&D) centers for industrial and motion control applications and automation solutions for flagship products in the process, hybrid, and machine builder markets. Currently serving as vice president of technology and architecture for Schneider Electric’s Industrial Automation Business, André has served as a member of the FDT Board since 2016 and presently sits on the ODVA Board and OPC Foundation Unified Architecture Field Xchange (UAFX) steering committee shaping the future of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). His dedication to working across the industrial automation ecosystem demonstrates clear leadership and support for the executive strategy of the organization that provides governance over the open FDT standard.

“I’m thrilled to lead the FDT community focused on eliminating intelligent device management barriers for industrial automation markets,” said André Uhl. “I’m passionate about open technology innovation and FDT’s vision to transform manufacturing excellence by collaborating and expanding access to these technologies enterprise-wide on a data-centric platform critical in supporting the modern, connected industrial world.”

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@FDTGroup @SchneiderElec #PAuto #Standards

Intelligent & multifunctional sensors.

Generating, transporting and processing information are central tasks in the Industry 4.0 environment. The basis for all the information is intelligent sensors which provide the required input. With their BOS 21M ADCAP, Balluff  have a newly developed optical multifunction sensor series.

The versatile all-rounder uses red light and allows choice from among four sensor modes: background suppression, energetic diffuse, retroreflective or through-beam sensor. All the sensor functions can be configured over IO-Link while the system is running, so that a remote teach-in can be initiated by the controller.

In addition the sensor detects actual operating conditions, collects and processes information and provides far more data than just the switching signal over IO-Link. Detection signals are prepared and pre-processed in the sensor. This relieves the burden on the system controller and reduces data volume on the fieldbus systems.

Comprehensive, smart diagnostics functions provide important information such as life expectancy, operating hours and function reserve. Increasing amount dirt deposits, sensor misalignment, setting errors or other irregularities can then be reliably detected early by monitoring the emissivity values as a measure of the sensor signal quality. But when it comes to operating security this intelligent sensor offers even more. The BOS 21M ADCAP is the first to optically monitor the output of the emitter LED directly and to determine the "stress level" by means of the sensor interior temperature and the supply voltage.

@Balluff #PAuto

Bringing intelligence to industrial plants.

Partnership to provide actionable insights across industrial plants, cloud and on-premises data centers for higher productivity and innovation.

ABB and Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) have announced a strategic global partnership that combines ABB’s industry-leading digital offerings, ABB AbilityTM, with HPE’s innovative hybrid information technology (IT) solutions. The partnership will provide customers with solutions that generate actionable insights from vast amounts of industrial data to increase the efficiency and flexibility of their operations and create competitive advantage.

ABB's Ulrich Spiesshofer

“This strategic partnership marks the next level of the digital industrial transformation. Together, we will bring intelligence from cloud-based solutions to on-premises deployments in industrial plants and data centers for greater uptime, speed and yield,” said ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer. “ABB and HPE will deliver solutions that span the entire range of computing required by enterprises today, from the edge to the cloud to the core.”

Customers will benefit from ABB’s deep domain expertise in operations technologies (OT) and HPE’s leadership in information technologies (IT). ABB and HPE will deliver joint industry solutions that merge OT and IT to turn industrial data into insights and automatic action, combining widely-adopted cloud platforms like Microsoft Azure with IT systems running in corporate data centers and at the edge of the network. Employing the right mix of IT platforms will accelerate data processing in industrial plants and at the same time enable effective control of industrial processes across locations.

With an installed base of 70 million connected devices, 70,000 digital control systems and 6,000 enterprise software solutions, ABB is a trusted leader in the industrial space, and has a four-decade-long history of creating digital solutions for customers. HPE in turn is a global leader in helping customers optimize their IT environments with secure, software-defined technologies that seamlessly integrate across traditional IT, multiple public and private clouds and the intelligent edge to drive key business outcomes.

HPE's Meg Whitman

“This alliance between two global leaders is unprecedented in terms of breadth and depth, and it will be ground-breaking for the progress of the Industrial Internet of Things,” said Meg Whitman, CEO, HPE. “Together with ABB, we will shape a digital industrial future where everything computes, equipping machines with intelligence to collaborate, allowing plants to flexibly adapt to changing demands, and enabling global supply chains to instantaneously react to incidents. This partnership will create exciting business opportunities for our joint customers.”

To provide a true end-to-end experience for customers, the ABB-HPE partnership will include co-innovation, co-development, joint go to market and service.

Research firm IDC forecasts that worldwide spending on the Internet of Things (IoT) will grow to $1.4 trillion in 2021 from an expected $800 billion in 2017. The largest investments are being made in areas such as manufacturing, transportation and utilities.1 To tap into the opportunities of the IoT, companies are investing in new solutions that digitize their industrial equipment and integrate it with their broader IT environments. By joining forces, ABB and HPE are bringing together the capabilities needed to accelerate this transformation.

Computing where it is required
Running data acquisition, analytics and control processes near industrial equipment helps customers avoid the latency, security and reliability issues associated with data communication through remote IT systems. ABB and HPE will jointly develop, market and service digital industrial solutions that help customers:

• Create deep insights and automatic action from industrial data – by running ABB AbilityTM applications on enterprise-grade IT systems close to the industrial equipment to accelerate the processing of vast amounts of data; and
• Manage and control industrial processes across the supply chain – by leveraging hybrid IT to provide a seamless experience from edge to cloud to core, making critical data available across locations.

The partnership will enable ABB Ability™ solutions to run on hybrid platforms such as HPE ProLiant for Microsoft Azure Stack, enabling customers to deploy applications to their preferred location – on HPE infrastructure in industrial plants and data centers or in the Microsoft Azure public cloud – to meet the specific requirements regarding performance, security or cross-site collaboration.

ABB and HPE will also deliver joint solutions for data centers, including

• Data center automation – to enable data center power, cooling and building systems automatically adapt to changing IT demands or incidents. To that end, ABB and HPE will integrate ABB AbilityTM Data Center Automation, which controls, monitors and optimizes mission-critical data center facilities infrastructure, with HPE OneView, HPE’s IT infrastructure automation software.
• Secure edge data center – specifically designed to run in harsh industrial environments, bringing enterprise-grade IT capacity closer to the point of data collection and machine control. This solution is being developed in collaboration between ABB, HPE and Rittal, the world’s largest manufacturer of IT racks, and will be an off-the-shelf ready IT data center solution for industrial customers enabling real-time insight and action.

 @ABBgroupnews #PAuto @HPE

Bringing diagnostic capabilities into the field.

Intelligent Fieldbus from Pepperl+Fuchs is synonymous with a generation of components that brings diagnostic capabilities into the field. The new FieldConnex® FieldBarrier is the perfect addition to this concept of uncompromising availability. It includes twelve outputs with diagnostics and monitoring. The FieldBarrier comes with innovative technical features that offer reliable protection against typical fault scenarios to ensure maximum reliability.

An intelligent component is an ideal component: FieldConnex® FieldBarriers can detect the special dynamics of faults, such as loose contacts or contact bounces. As a result, faults can be identified and isolated both quickly and reliably.

The new component is the first to allow monitoring of the physical layer at each FieldBarrier output. This enables gradual changes in the installation and faults in the control room to be reported. This monitoring function ensures an even higher degree of transparency and covers a significant gap in the monitoring process as it proactively identifies maintenance requirements. Another feature is the sophisticated load management. The twelve outputs start sequentially, reducing the load on the power supply from the inrush current. What's more, if the segment current reaches critical levels, automatic load-shedding of less critical nodes is activated in order to safeguard against failure of the entire segment.

This package of integrated intelligence is completed by the FieldBarrier self-monitoring function, which can transmit alarm signals to the control room. These innovative features do not require any engineering. The FieldConnex FieldBarrier is the perfect addition to diagnostics-enabled intelligent fieldbus components and is another key step toward achieving the goal of 100 % availability.

Focus on Manufacturing Intelligence

SolutionsPT, has appointed a new Product Manager to drive the sales performance of its portfolio of Manufacturing Intelligence) products and services.

Michael Charles has been appointed to the role of Manufacturing Intelligence Product Manager to increase revenue growth for SolutionsPT by connecting the company’s technology solutions with common business problems within the marketplace.

Prior to joining SolutionsPT, Michael was a product manager for Manchester based Outsourcery’s Business Applications portfolio, before being promoted to managing O-Cloud – the company’s cloud services platform.

Michael commented: “There has been a blurring of lines between production and IT and there’s currently a big push in IT departments to add ‘visible value’. My first priority is to review with fresh eyes the current MIS marketplace, to see what’s out there and what opportunities are available for SolutionsPT to add value.”

Phil Gillard, SolutionsPT, General Manager, added: “We are delighted to welcome Michael to the team. His previous experience will add a valuable new dimension to the team and we’re excited to see how he will develop our sales activity in the Manufacturing Intelligence area.”

New Standards Committee on Intelligent Device Management

The International Society of Automation (ISA) has established a new standards committee, ISA108, Intelligent Device Management. The committee will define standard templates of best practices and work processes for design, development, installation and use of diagnostic and other information provided by intelligent field devices in the process industries.

Intelligent field devices, pervasive in modern process manufacturing, bring the promise of transforming the way information is utilized, related to these devices and the processes they control. For example, devices with impending maintenance problems can be identified earlier with the information provided directly to process automation systems, plant asset management systems or other systems or software as required.

In many cases, the promise remains unrealised, often because users are employing old maintenance work processes with new technology. The new devices and applications are installed, but operators and technicians stick to their traditional approaches to preventive or routine maintenance and do not take advantage of the huge amount of information available to them.

Indeed, as ISA108 Managing Director Ian Verhappen of Yokogawa Canada points out, “with more than 80% of smart instrument data not being used or even connected to an online data collection system, the lost revenues to the process industries are tremendous. Thus, the need is clear for a series of standards on how to integrate this data into control systems and work practices to achieve the benefits of proactive maintenance.”

See also "ISA Charters New Standards Committee on Intelligent Device Management" (Control, 6/9/2012)

ISA108 will hold an initial meeting on 24 September 2012 in Orlando, Florida, USA, in conjunction with ISA Automation Week 2012. However, the bulk of the committee’s work will be conducted electronically. If you are interested in participating in ISA108, please contact Ellen Fussell Policastro of ISA Standards.