As an active member of the IO-Link Steering Committee, Baumer wants to support the further optimization of the communication system in close cooperation with other sensor and automation companies. The Steering Committee controls the technology development of IO-Link and, in addition to the elected members, consists of the Steering Committee leader and the working group leaders Quality, Technology, Marketing, Profiles and Integration.

The Steering Committee now includes 18 companies that play a key role in the further development of IO-Link. The companies were elected to the committee on June 23 in Frankfurt at the IO-Link general meeting.

"No alternative for IO-Link in simple field devices"

Lasse-Pekka Thiem, active on the committee for Baumer, sees the continuous further development of IO-Link technology as an important task for driving digitized production forward. "On the way to the smart factory, there is no alternative to IO-Link for simple field devices in my view. But I also see a few areas for improvement. We need to make it even easier for users to use IO-Link and to exploit the full potential of this future-proof technology," says Thiem.

The following companies and individuals are involved in the IO-Link Steering Committee:

• Torsten Delfs, Balluff
• Dmitry Gringauz, Banner Engineering
• Lasse-Pekka Thiem, Baumer
• Daniel Schlotthauer, Beckhoff
• Florian Welker, Festo
• Werner Flögel, Gemü
• Joachim Uffelmann, IFM (Speaker)
• Ingo Baumgardt, Leuze
• Wolfgang Wiedemann, Murrelektronik
• Kazushi Tanase, Omron
• Sebastian Stöber, Pepperl+Fuchs
• Claus Kühnel, Phoenix Contact
• Frank Moritz, Sick
• Achim Gutsche, Siemens
• Otto Witte, TEConcept
• Karim Jamal, Texas Instruments
• Klaus-Peter Willems, TMG
• Sai Seidel-Sridhavan, Turck