Moving from IT-powered automation to Industry 4.0

Phoenix Contact regards Industry 4.0 as a model for the future development of industrial production systems. Therefore, the company is concentrating its activities on digital item description, secure communications, as well as intelligent and independent control of machinery and equipment in combination with easy installation and usability. Industry 4.0-compliant components, systems, and solutions are being currently developed in these areas. In order to show what this approach can look like, Phoenix Contact will present an Industry 4.0 demonstrator at SPS IPC drives in Hall 9, booth 310. Owing to the integrated digitisation of the engineering process, terminal rails can be individually populated with terminal blocks. Since Industry 4.0 is an evolutionary process, the demonstrator underlines that development takes place gradually. First experience with our own production implementation of this future design concept will highlight the benefits of Industry 4.0 for machine and plant constructors as well as for end users.

Through the integration of IT into industrial automation and communication technology, machines and systems will gain the flexibility to adapt to today’s rapidly changing manufacturing processes. This is a central requirement of the forward-looking Industry 4.0 project. The concept of IT-powered automation – which has already been implemented by Phoenix Contact in its products and solutions for many years – forms the basis of tomorrow’s intelligent production. Only through the use of the internationally accepted Ethernet standards and a seamless exchange of data across all levels of the company is it possible to operate applications economically while also ensuring investment security.