Industry NewsAugust 3, 2021

Announcing IO-Link North America

IO Link North America Website

PI North America, the non-profit member-supported trade association for promoting industrial networking technologies in North America, has signed a contract with the IO-Link Community, on behalf of the PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation (PNO) to become a Regional IO-Link Interest Group (RIOLIG) for North America.

The cooperation encompasses promoting the IO-Link technology, offering IO-Link member registration services, organizing seminars and workshops, technical training, and trade fairs, and managing the related product test and certification services and other technical support for North America enterprises and users. The IO-Link Community is committed to supporting RIOLIG North America in its IO-Link related activities by providing technical expertise, marketing materials, and expert presentations for events.

“Since the start of the year, there has been a strong uptick in interest in IO-Link here in North America. Also, existing PI North America members are showing increased interest. Due to these circumstances, we decided to host an IO-Link webinar during the month of May. It was a great success. Together with the launch of the io-link.us website, we are building the foundation for a strong RIOLIG here in North America,” said Michael Bowne, Executive Director, PI North America.

About IO-Link

IO-Link is an international standard for industrial communication at the device level. It was developed in cooperation with a wide range of automation technology manufacturers. This community has undertaken to develop, standardize, and make available worldwide the technology under the “IO-Link” brand. IO-Link as a key technology for digitization influences both components and software in automation systems. The technology, also known as the “USB of Automation”, helps users to create the simplest configurations and most flexible applications. Due to the openness, which is unique in the industry, integration into existing and new automation systems is guaranteed.

About PI North America

PI North America is dedicated to showing the industry the benefits of using fieldbuses and Industrial Ethernet in general, and PROFIBUS and PROFINET in particular, while assisting device manufacturers throughout North America in the development and marketing of PROFIBUS and PROFINET products. PI North America is one of 27 regional associations that make up the global PI community. Established in 1989, PI has more than 1,500 different member companies. As of 2020, more than 65,000,000 PROFIBUS devices have been installed and the total number of PROFINET devices installed now exceeds 40,000,000. Members of PI North America include vendors of hardware, software and systems as well as end-users and operators, scientific institutes, universities, distributors, and system integrators.