Companies far and wide have come to appreciate IO-Link technology for its easy installation as well for being the first standardized protocol of its kind, resulting in its increased implementation in fieldbus systems established in the market. This makes the fieldbus-independent IO-Link standard the ideal solution for many companies, as it allows them to connect products to different systems and controllers worldwide.

In my 40 years working in industry and industrial automation, I cannot recall a period in which there has been so much technological jargon. Almost every periodical, advertisement, blog, article, paper, conference or website is loaded with references to the Internet of Things (IoT), the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), Industrie 4.0, Cloud Computing, Fog Computing, Edge Computing, Big Data Analytics and/or Small Data Analytics.

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.

If you design industrial networks for food and beverage processors, or if you are an engineer in such a facility, you know that the cost of downtime is high. In fact it’s estimated that if a cabling system fails, the repair and labor costs alone could be 15 to 20 times the cost of the connector or cable itself -- if they can even be fixed at all. Downtime can reach overall costs of $20,000 to $30,000 per hour.

Thirty years ago most industrial control systems (ICS) were hardwired. Often sensors and actuators came with long wires already attached or individual wires that weren’t even jacketed together. Those wires would be threaded through conduits and then wired into the system. This was a time-consuming process that required the services of an electrician, costing organizations significant time and money.