We will continue to grow strongly in 2016," says Peter Gucher at B&R 's annual press conference in the run-up to SPS IPC Drives. According to the latest figures from the VDMA, the mechanical engineering industry recorded year-on-year sales growth of 2% in the first half of 2016. "We have clearly exceeded this figure and have even seen strong growth in recent months," says Gucher. In the past three years, B&R has always increased its sales by between 10% and 14%. Gucher will not reveal exactly how B&R will close the current year 2016 until the Hannover Messe trade fair. The General Manager only reveals this much: "It will be in line with the last few years."

The trade fair innovations

Codebox is an HTML5 application that can be used on any browser-enabled device.

© B&R Industrial Electronics

B&R will be highlighting the Super Trak linear transport system at the trade fair in Nuremberg. Presented for the first time at this year's Hannover Messe, this transport system is designed to support individualized production in mass production in particular. Gucher emphasizes the system's special features: easy maintenance and good synchronization of the transport shuttles with all types of servo axes, CNC and robotic systems in hard real time.

Another focal point at the trade fair is the Mapp software platform. The software framework was expanded in 2016 to include the web-based visualization solution Mapp View. This makes it easy to implement video recordings, multi-touch gestures and other operating concepts from the smartphone world. As Mapp View is independent of operating systems, it also runs on any mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. A new addition is the 'Mapp Codebox'. It makes it possible to program options in ladder diagrams without changing the original machine software. The machine builder programs the basic functions of his machine as usual in the automation software. They can specify which data, functions and variables Mapp Codebox has access to. All special requests and options can be added later in ladder diagrams in this way. The separation of machine software and additional software for individual options has several advantages. On the one hand, it is impossible for errors to be subsequently programmed into the machine software when implementing options or customizations. Secondly, variant management is simplified. Codebox is an HTML5 application that can be used on any browser-enabled device. A signal flow display helps with diagnostics and maintenance. The ladder diagram programs can be saved, versioned and transferred to other machines. If required, they can also be imported back into the automation project.

OPC UA plus TSN with a question mark

In the spirit of Industry 4.0, B&R will be showcasing several communication solutions for the networked production of the future at SPS IPC Drives. For example, the combination of OPC UA and openSafety now makes it possible to safely automate modular and flexible machine lines.

The extent to which anything on the subject of OPC UA plus Time Sensitive Networks (TSN) will be on show at the trade fair remains a matter of speculation. At the Industrial Ethernet TSN congress (see p. 12ff.) in September, marketing manager Stefan Schönegger specified B&R's TSN plans. According to these plans, the technology roll-out of OPC UA and TSN will take place on all controllers in the coming year; the X20 IO system will also undergo a corresponding product roll-out in 2017.

What will certainly be on show, however, is the cloud solution for the Aprol process control system. The control system can be installed on virtual computers from all common cloud providers. The data is pre-processed and compressed by a local Aprol installation so that only meaningful data is sent to the cloud database. This approach, which is based on the concept of fog or edge computing, is designed to keep data traffic costs low. Aprol supports the MQTT, AMQP and OPC UA protocols. The number of local Aprol installations that send data to a central cloud Aprol is not limited. The evaluations of the business intelligence solutions of local and cloud-based installations are retrieved via a REST interface.