Yokogawa Electric Corporation has joined the PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation e.V. (PNO), an interest group for the PROFIBUS and PROFINET standard communication protocols that are widely used in industrial automation applications. Originally developed to meet the needs of the manufacturing industry, PROFIBUS has evolved into a fieldbus standard for both discrete manufacturing and process automation. PROFIBUS and PROFINET are standardised under a range of international standards, the most important being IEC 61158 and 61784. Masatoshi Nakahara, General Manager of the Marketing Center at the Yokogawa Industrial Automation Business Headquarters, commented as follows regarding Yokogawa's membership in the PNO: "In addition to FOUNDATION fieldbus and the HART protocols, we see PROFIBUS DP and PROFINET as especially important protocols for industrial automation - not only in central Europe and other mature markets, but increasingly in the Asia-Pacific region and China. Yokogawa currently offers a range of PROFIBUS based products and solutions, and we are committed to expanding our portfolio in the future." "With some 19,500 employees worldwide and a turnover of well over US$3 billion, we perceive ourselves to be among the leading suppliers of industrial automation solutions, with our main focus on the process industries. Along with our strong worldwide presence, we believe that we are the market leader in the Asia-Pacific region, China, and Japan - a situation that will benefit PROFIBUS technology in general."
