Here’s your situation - industrial security is a hot topic today and management has decided to assign you the task to take an assessment and come up with a plan to protect the company from… well, they didn’t exactly say. Perhaps some budget support was provided for this task and perhaps not. Regardless of funding, it is understood that the priority is still to keep production running while you put your plan into action.

Machine builders today have to meet the needs and demands of many diverse customers across the globe. And, since these customers usually prefer to use one specific industrial protocol, machine builders’ machines have to adapt accordingly. In order to make machine building easier, Belden’s Lumberg Automation brand developed the first multiprotocol I/O solution with M12 power (L-coded) connectors. In this blog post, I share my answers to a few questions about how Belden assisted one of its customers to easily meet global standards.

There is an elephant in the industrial infrastructure control room. Much of the equipment within our US critical infrastructure sectors is at risk of aging out, needing replacement or upgrade, yet still in production use. When upgrading to state-of-the-art technology, water and wastewater treatment plants have to assess legacy systems and also project needs for the next 10, 20 or even 30 years. This requires the use of future-proof infrastructure components flexible enough to adapt to network changes or growth.

As you watch a Formula 1 car race around a track at speeds of more than 200 mph, have you ever considered who actually makes decisions about things like when to change a tire or pass another car?

Self-described “Mr. Potatohead,” aka Sean McBride, gave a keynote address on Thursday, October 13, 2016 in Orlando, Florida at Belden’s annual Industrial Ethernet Infrastructure Design Seminar (IEIDS).