National Instruments, Siemens cooperate to develop solutions

Hannover, Germany— National Instruments (NI, Austin, Tex.) and Siemens AG's (Munich, Germany) Automation and Drives Group announced April 23 at Hannover Fair 2001 a cooperative effort to develop measurement and automation solutions for applications requiring precise measurement and control of manufacturing processes.

By Staff May 1, 2001

Hannover, Germany— National Instruments (NI, Austin, Tex.) and Siemens AG’s (Munich, Germany) Automation and Drives Group announced April 23 at Hannover Fair 2001 a cooperative effort to develop measurement and automation solutions for applications requiring precise measurement and control of manufacturing processes. The initiative begins with integration of NI’s PC-based industrial measurement products and Siemens’ Simatic WinAC PC-based manufacturing automation systems. In time, NI and Siemens plan to develop higher-level measurement and automation solutions that span the entire length of a factory floor or other production facility. With the first step of this cooperative initiative, engineers can use WinAC with NI’s measurement and signal conditioning hardware to create higher-speed control applications that monitor the condition and performance of factory floor equipment. NI also is developing an application for its LabView graphical development environment to communicate with WinAC control software. With WinAC for control and LabView for higher-speed measurement and monitoring, such as vibration analysis, engineers can perform machine control and monitoring in a more integrated fashion.