Expert Alliance to offer vendor neutral advice

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 27, 2004

The AS-Interface UK Association is relaunching itself as the AS-Interface Expert Alliance at the Drives and Controls Show in Telford next month.

The AS-Interface UK Association is relaunching itself as the AS-Interface Expert Alliance at the Drives and Controls Show in Telford next month.

Alliance experts are also presenting two identical half-day seminars, taking place on the mornings of Wednesday 12th October and Thursday 13th October to give visitors a choice of days to attend.

Representatives from the Health and Safety Executive are supporting both seminars to explain the regulatory background for networked safety systems.

Chairman Geoff Hodgkinson said: "From a technology standpoint we have been highly successful at making AS-Interface the leading device-level networking solution".

"AS-Interface has 10 million installed devices worldwide - so it's in the same success 'ballpark' as Profibus".

"Now the market needs a different type of support and that's where the Expert Alliance comes in".

Despite its simplicity, AS-Interface requires a range of disciplines and knowledge to implement successfully.

It's on this aspect that the new Expert Alliance will focus, and the aim is to deliver real value to end users in particular.

Enhancements to the AS-Interface specification are also being introduced shortly and it will be necessary to explain these in coming months too.

The "expert" areas covered by the new alliance are: core products; safety systems; applications/integration; process control and connectivity.

The Expert Alliance service is entirely free, and all advice and guidance will be non-vendor-specific and free of obligation.

Chairman Geoff Hodgkinson commented: "We have some of the world's best experts in AS-Interface as members in the UK".

"We also have a group of UK-based companies who know the market here extremely well, including connectivity, integration and application experts".

"The advice they can offer is uniquely focussed on the UK market and I am sure that everyone taking advantage of the new service will be delighted with the results".

The two half day seminars at Drives and Controls will focus on how AS-Interface is used in real applications.

An introductory paper will cover the basic technology, working with AS-Interface will be covered in detail by a systems integrator and there will be a paper on using AS-Interface in machine safety applications.

A special bonus presentation by Health and Safety Executive experts will explain the crucial regulatory background of networked safety systems in automation.

The latest V3 specification enhancements will also be covered.

The seminars start at 1030 BST on both Wednesday 13th October and Thursday 14th October and last for approximately 2.5h.

A web-based Expert Alliance service will shortly be available from the AS-Interface website.

This will have other online features to build additional value for vendors and end users.

Members of the Expert Alliance are: Burkert Flow Control, Bihl + Weidemann, Fortress Interlocks, IMI Norgren, Johnson Mathey, Kinetrol, LC Automation, Manchester Metropolitan University, Pepperl + Fuchs, Siemens, Sigmapi and Tyco.