GE和SEW-EURODRIVE发布合作伙伴关系

While there’s been no shortage of news around GE lately, much of it dealing with the financial aspects of GE as a whole, the company’s Automation & Controls business has been plugging forward. In addition to bolstering the company’s focus on critical infrastructure industries with new product introductions and capability expansions, the group is also establishing the groundwork for increasing its involvement in the manufacturing industries to a greater extent.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of GE’s renewed attention to manufacturing comes via its announcement of a partnership with SEW-Eurodrive, a global motor and drive technology supplier. Currently, this partnership has two key aspects, the first of which is that both companies will sell each other’s products globally. According to the release announcing the partnership, “GE and SEW-Eurodrive plan to provide complementary solutions for drive and controller-based motion control solutions for discrete and process applications. These solutions can be used in applications including machine control, manufacturing and a variety of infrastructure verticals.”

The second component of the partnership is technology integration. GE will integrate SEW’s variable frequency drives (VFDs) and servo motors into its GE PACMotion product line, while SEW will explore integration of GE’s工业互联网控制系统（IIC）进入其基于控制器的驱动产品，提供分析，可以帮助降低驱动和电机运营成本并提高效率。

在嵌入式世界宣布的嵌入式世界2018年，我与GE Automation＆Controls的Portfolio产品线经理Vibhoosh Gupta发表讲话，他展示了GE的新PacMotion VFD（与本文看到的图片）。此VFD是GE / SEW-EURODRIVE伙伴关系的第一个有形结果。作为IICS系列中的第一个完全集成的VFD产品，在恶劣环境中安装的驱动器用于安装 - 旨在提供相当大的节能，以帮助最小化电动机的寿命运营成本。

通过致电新的PacMotion VFD“完全集成”来澄清GE意味着什么，Gupta表示它从软件开始。“就像你可以使用一个界面配置我们的PacSystems产品一样，您现在可以与PacMotion VFD相同，”他说。“这延伸到GE和SEW-EURODRIVE对PROFINET协议的使用。”他指出，PROFINET系统冗余不是VFDS上通常可用的东西，但现在是这种集成。

这些VFD产品的冗余方面源于GE对其PACSystems RX3I CPE400和PACEdge CPL400控制器的冗余 - 在嵌入式世界活动中也展示了这一点。GE表示，这些新控制器具有双重冗余，“提供了一个高度可用的系统，以确保最大的正常运行时间，同时降低总体拥有成本。”

Gupta解释说，CPE400的冗余功能意味着您不需要购买备用控制器，通常是在寻找提供系统冗余时的方法。他说，加上，它占用了比GE的RX3I面板系统小50％以上的时间超过50％。

这种关注冗余将很快延伸到VFDS，Gupta补充道，使用户可以具有完全冗余的控制系统。

Looking into the future of GE’s partnership with SEW, Gupta said, “providing customers with one tool chain for configuration is what we have delivered in this partnership announcement. The next step will involve integration of SEW’s servo motors into our PACSystems.”

Gupta说，一旦伺服电机集成步骤发生，GE自动化和控制将清楚地回到制造业中。“这[与缝制合作]将使我们成为公司的更大焦点。我们看到GE在制造业中的持续投资，并正在围绕缝制我们的投资组合。“