JOERG FREITAG
New Chairman of PI and PNO.

Freitag was introduced as the new Chairman at a recent meeting of 11 Regional PI Associations (they are the regional offices representing PROFIBUS and PROFINET around the world) held in Tokyo during May. PTO Executive Director Mike Bryant, who had filled the PI role temporarily, proposed Joerg to the meeting, which elected him unanimously. Our always-intrepid editor posed the following questions afterwards:

Q: What do you think are the next major steps for PI?
A: Most of the great technical issues have been settled so we must capitalize on the great progress made with PROFIBUS by building and delivering the support needed to grow PROFINET into the most successful Industrial Ethernet. We must continue to support members internationally and look outwards to see where we can give help in other ways too.

Q: Does PI, your other responsibility, present any different challenges?
A: Not really. The team effort based in Karlsruhe radiates worldwide, with cooperative efforts taking place internationally to push our technologies onwards. I believe this team effort is one of the unique features of our organization and part of my job now is to encourage and develop it further. You can actually watch this happening with the fantastic international network of Regional PI Associations, Test Centers, Competence Centers and Training Centers still growing, and all pulling together with a common aim - to make PROFIBUS and PROFINET successful. The figure of $50 billion has been mentioned as the total value of the PROFIBUS market to date. None of that could have been achieved without teamwork.

Q: The uptake of Ethernet technologies has been slower than expected, hasn’t it?
A: In some ways yes, but we never thought that Ethernet was going to rise rapidly simply because it was new technology. Users need significant added value to make major changes to their automation networks. More than four years ago, my predecessor Edgar Küster said that the next phase of the fieldbus evolution was going to be ‘picking the low hanging fruits’, by which he meant that the market had been won and all our vendors had to do was build excellent PROFIBUS products and sell and support them in a professional manner ... which they have done! We have been surprised however by the almost unstoppable success of PROFIBUS. In 2007, for example, we sold more PROFIBUS devices than in any previous year. The trend is not slowing and sales of 25 million nodes will be achieved shortly. PROFINET is beautifully tied in with PROFIBUS to ensure that those expensively-acquired investments are not thrown away. PROFINET and PROFIBUS are a strategic partnership, and that is a unique feature for us.

Q: What significance do you attach to the announcement that 1.14 million PROFINET nodes have been sold?
A: The figure of 1 million is the important milestone that we needed to pass to reinforce the credibility of PROFINET. It proves we have achieved the success we promised. PROFINET is widely spread now and, because we’re not delivering a single device but a system architecture, we can now see the future much more clearly. This is the breakthrough moment for PROFINET, and the rate at which it continues to rise in popularity will now increase. We confidently expect to reach 3 million installed nodes by 2010.

Q: The ‘notary’ method of counting the nodes has come as a surprise to some people. What led you to employ this method of counting PROFINET numbers?
A: We needed to find a way to remove the uncertainties, and we also needed to wait until sufficient vendors could collaborate. After much discussion we decided to include only the devices that truly impact on an automation network - IO, drives, etc. Thus, we needed to know device sales, which is obviously sensitive information, so we looked for a neutral third party to help. Once all the pieces were in place we were ready. We hope the market can see that we are being open and realistic, and that by delivering genuine market numbers we have set a benchmark by which all Industrial Ethernet vendors can be measured.

Q: PI is also involved in other technologies besides PROFIBUS and PROFINET. What do these mean for the organization?
A: A body such as PI, once it’s grown to a certain point, has to take responsibility for more than just its own interests. It’s part of life and we try hard to take the responsibility seriously. We have always supported international Standardization and now we find ourselves filling gaps such as helping to bring FDT and EDD together within the FDI (Field Device Integration) project. We collaborate extensively with other bodies in similar positions - HART, FF, OPC and the FDT Group for example.

Q: What other initiatives are you involved in?
A: The TCI (Tool Calling Interface) project was thrust on us by large end users who wanted a common engineering solution for the diverse configuration tools they had to deal with. IO-Link is particularly interesting because it’s complementary communications technology and now that the integration issues have been settled this market can move forward. Our collaboration in international efforts to establish wireless standards is also continuing and we see this as particularly important, given that the process market has made its choice but the far larger factory market has not.

Q: Your efforts in emerging technology areas are another success story I believe.
A: In process automation our PA technology dominates because of our ability to handle ‘hybrid’ networks so well. The number of PROFIBUS PA devices increased by 120,000 to 750,000 in 2007, bringing the total number of installed PROFIBUS nodes in the process industries to 4 million, which corresponds to an additional 700,000 nodes in 2007. Motion Control is another major success for us. Also, Safety: the number of established PROFIsafe nodes increased by 180,000 to 410,000 in 2007, which equates to 41,000 systems - an increase of 15,000 across the year. All these figures convey how strong our deliverables really are.

Q: Finally, what message would you like to offer to end users about PROFIBUS and PROFINET?
A: PROFIBUS will be 20 years old in 2009! Since 1989 we have aimed to deliver strong and relevant technical solutions tightly focused on real end user needs. We have kept to that vision and the result is that a level of trust has been built up between ourselves, our vendor members and end users that underpins our market success. We won’t deviate from that strategy, and I promise to continue supporting the market in the same ways, and to my fullest capabilities.

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