P R E S S R E L E A S E

ARC white paper confirms benefits of PROFIBUS in process automation

Karlsruhe – 19 July 2004: A new white paper of the ARC Advisory Group, “The Value Proposition of PROFIBUS in the Hybrid Industries,” confirms the benefits of using PROFIBUS in process-oriented applications.

The demand for seamlessly networked production environments is constantly increasing, particularly in the hybrid applications of the pharmaceutical, chemical and cosmetics industries, as well as the food and beverage industries - the largest market segment of industrial automation. PROFIBUS is worldwide the only universal fieldbus allowing for unified solutions in production and process automation. The benefit of PROFIBUS in hybrid applications is documented by current results and practical examples of the new ARC white paper.

Just a few years ago, production and process automation were considered as two completely separate areas. Today, users are requesting unified solutions since the value-added chain of a company rarely consists of “purely” discrete or process-oriented tasks. To tap all savings potentials and lower the total cost of ownership, the industrial communication must also do justice to the requested uniformity. PROFIBUS can be applied in all segments of the production processes: from upstream via mainstream to downstream, from material delivery and inspection of incoming shipments via all process steps up to bottling, packaging and shipping. The use of PROFIBUS can significantly lower costs for investment, operation and maintenance and, at the same time, increase system availability and productivity.

By the end of 2003, 10 million PROFIBUS nodes were already installed worldwide. Approximately 1.6 million nodes are used in process automation, and more than 300,000 of them for the connection of field instruments based on the PROFIBUS PA profile that was developed for the process industry. According to the present white paper, more and more users with hybrid systems rely on the benefits of an homogenous fieldbus architecture with PROFIBUS that allows for industry-spanning networking. ARC Senior Analyst David Humphrey confirms: "A fieldbus’ value proposition is directly correlated to the variety of different plant applications it can address. Manufacturers in hybrid industries, like pharmaceuticals or food & beverage, deal with daily operational issues involving both process and discrete applications. These users demand a seamless industrial network solution that is at home in all manufacturing domains. PROFIBUS handles both areas via its common communication layer that makes possible a single approach to network configuration and diagnostics in all areas of the plant. This universal value proposition is unique among available fieldbus solutions."

The new white paper of the ARC Advisory Group is available free of charge to all interested parties on the PROFIBUS homepage (

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Graphic:

PROFIBUS can be applied in all segments of the production processes: from upstream via mainstream to downstream.

The text of this press release and the graphic are available for download under .

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