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In Your Opinion, What Makes
These Collaborations So Successful?
I believe that cooperation coming from an equal partnership is important
in achieving the best possible result. Over the years we have been able
to establish close contact with control system manufacturers. We offer
innovative, tailor-made/engineered solutions – something that both the
system manufacturers and end clients are aware of. When our control
system manufacturers develop new products, they involve us in the
process as early as the feasibility study stage. As a result, we are able
to advise right from the beginning about technical possibilities and
jointly develop solutions that provide control system manufacturers
with unique selling points, allowing them later to promote these again
to their end customers. Early involvement is also of benefit to us: We
can simultaneously develop solutions resulting from feasibility studies
for our customers and introduce them to the market.
What Are the Advantages of This Close Cooperation?
We can respond quickly and adapt our products to the specific require
ments of the control system manufacturers. The major bonus for plant
operators is that products can be implemented immediately. A good
example of this is in the area of conventional interface technology, in
particular in the development of our intelligent universal barrier “THE
BARRIER”. With this product, we have developed a unique technical
solution that enables control system manufacturers to offer their uni-
versal input/output (I/O) cards with intrinsically safe signals to their end
customers. This solution is based on the good working relationship
between us, industry-recognized end clients, and a leading control
system manufacturer, which has helped to define the requirements for
automatic configuration of the barriers and to fulfill these requirements
according to the customer’s wishes. The result: The control system
manufacturer can now present solutions using our products and offer
them for projects in a targeted manner.
What Feedback Do You Receive
from Control System Manufacturers?
We get a lot of positive feedback. But of course it is more interesting
to let our partners have their say:
Grant Le Sueur, Director – Control and Safety Software,
Schneider Electric – Process Automation Division
“I recently had the pleasure of testing a Pepperl+Fuchs-supplied thin
client device. My interest was to determine the capabilities of RM Shell
in order to gauge the user experience. My observation during experiments
was that the RM Shell client setup software struck the right balance of
functionality and ease of use, while shielding the end user from cryptic
setup procedures. I am confident that our delivery teams and our end
users would find the user experience to be a pleasantly surprising,
straightforward user experience, while also addressing key failure
modes typically associated with thin client deployment.”
Three Questions
for ...
Karsten Fischer
Director of Global Account Management
at Pepperl+Fuchs in Houston, USA
Applications + Knowledge
| News for Process Automation 1/2016
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