Ethernet is an increasingly crucial network in industrial applications. Industrial Ethernet represents a landmark for the automation of manufacturing and production procedures and building automation. Ethernet as your industrial communication protocol represents an adaptation of Ethernet technology in the production procedures. It accelerates the synchronization and communication of the actuators participating in the production process.

As you may know that Ethernet is based on the master-slave principle where the actuators controlling the procedures are the slaves. The slaves are connected through a shared line to a master.  They serve to reduce the load of the central control that ultimately reduces energy consumption.

Manufacturing and production procedures have become increasingly multi-layered, and with that, complex. The demands for the control of these procedures have increased correspondingly. This is where industrial Ethernet has come into the play. It can transfer data with 100 Mbps enabling secure communication between numerous system components without the risk of data collision. Moreover, each module of an industrial Ethernet network can be reprogrammed relatively faster enabling a new combination of the network components as per the building block concept.

If you are considering applying industrial Ethernet network at your factory setting, the industrial Ethernet services and products are currently discounted at the Equustek Solutions Inc.

In this post, we will discuss the three reasons to use Ethernet as your industrial communication protocol.

#1 Flexibility
As discussed in the above section, Ethernet offers different arrangements for different media. The flexibility that Ethernet boasts allows for complementing industry topology at the right price. The bus topology offers a low-cost connection that includes a daisy chain feature where availability is not obligatory. Fiber optic cables allow for retaining a high bandwidth while enabling a long distance network.

The ring topology, on the other hand, is typically used in automation, which is designed to allow at least one fault tolerance. The ability of Ethernet to mix these typologies within an industry setting assists operation managers to adapt network layouts within the availability and physical requirements.

#2 Transparency
Transparency is another reason to use Ethernet as your industrial communication protocol. Transparency is a great technology benefit as it allows for securely accessing data from everywhere. However, one downside of Ethernet transparency is the administrative necessity to make sure the security of the network is not compromised. Apart from this, it is a great boost for the whole plant. For instance, having Ethernet on process units helps in accessing data straight away. On the other hand, this data consolidation allows the plant to predict and manage its energy consumption.

#3 Openness
The openness feature of Ethernet allows for combining multiple application protocols on the same media. These application protocols offer numerous services that best fit an organization’s operational requirements. Ethernet industrial protocol enables communication between functional visualization and controllers where determinism is a must. Moreover, during different industrial operations, requirements such as time synchronization, diagnostics, and IT connection are easily carried out through Ethernet, thanks to its openness.

Final Words
Ethernet helps in increasing the agility of an organization’s operations. It allows for modifications without requiring the need of changing the complete infrastructure.