Leader of the PAC

May 2008 PLCs, DCSs & Controllers

GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms celebrates 5th anniversary of industry-leading product.

Daniel Coetzee, manager for GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms for Africa notes: “Five years ago, we unveiled the first programmable automation controller, PACSystems, at an Evening of Imagination in Chicago Illinois. The PACSystems is built on open standards with a portable control engine, a single development tool and a universal engineering development environment.”

“Five years ago, PACSystems was considered revolutionary. It represented a significant change in the control industry - one that enabled control convergence rather than mere integration of disparate parts and pieces. With one engine, coupled with a single development tool, users could take advantage of a powerful engineering environment for multiple applications,” he comments.

Through this ground-breaking innovation, the GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms PACSystems family of products addressed major engineering and business issues – such as the prevailing need for high productivity and communications openness.

Coetzee goes on to say: “This flexible technology has helped users boost the overall performance of their automation systems, reduce engineering costs, and significantly decreasing concerns regarding short- and long-term migration and platform longevity.”

Since 2003, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms has kept up a steady stream of innovative additions to the PACSystems family, in order to ensure customers had the right capabilities to meet their needs. By combining new technology with existing hardware systems, the PACSystems family has provided a seamless migration path for users who have needed to upgrade their control platforms.

“Demand for PACs is projected to strengthen even further across all discrete, hybrid, and process industries going into the future, as manufacturers and OEMs will increasingly specify and require PAC functionality for an ever growing number of applications,” concludes Coetzee.

For more information contact Daniel Coetzee, GE Fanuc Automation, +27 (0)31 583 3640, [email protected], www.gefanuc.com

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