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Red Lion reaches milestone with support for over 300 protocols

Red Lion Controls announced that the company’s flagship Crimson 3.0 software now offers communication support for more than 300 industrial protocols.

Red Lion Controls is represented in Australia by Queensland-based Control Logic.

Protocol conversion is a key element needed to make the concept of the Connected Factory a reality, empowering plant managers to adapt existing equipment including drives, PLCs and HMIs to drive efficiency while reducing total cost of ownership in industrial environments.

“One of the many challenges faced by end users, OEMs and system integrators is to find software tools that enable communications between hundreds of disparate devices and protocols in both a cost effective and time effective manner,” according to Craig Resnick, vice president at ARC Advisory Group.

“These software tools must be intuitive enough to enable disparate device and protocol communications via simple configuration programs that do not require programming or training.

“Red Lion’s Crimson 3.0 software appears to fulfill these market requirements that in turn provides the business benefits of quicker project deployment, better asset utilisation and a greater number of devices actively communicating, all of which results in increased productivity and profitability for manufacturers and integrators alike.”

With just a few clicks, Crimson converts protocols for disparate industrial devices, allowing them to share work-in-process, machine status and other information. Deployed on Red Lion’s Graphite HMI panels, ProducTVity Station, Data Station Plus or other industrial automation offerings, Crimson gives organizations the ability to boost productivity, optimise material usage and troubleshoot systems in real time.

Supporting the simultaneous conversion of multiple protocols, the use of Red Lion’s Crimson-enabled products allow companies to integrate almost any PLC, PC or SCADA system for data collection, monitoring and control of factory floor equipment from different manufacturers.

“Connecting systems and sharing information enables companies to optimise productivity and streamline processes, but in order to do that the devices need to be able to communicate,” said Jeff Thornton, director of product management at Red Lion Controls.

“By offering support for over 300 industrial protocols that vary from proprietary to open-source, we give our customers the industry’s widest range of choices to seamlessly extend connectivity across the factory floor to remote locations without requiring new equipment investments.”

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