ODVA announces new officers, new initiatives at annual meeting

March 9, 2006
McEldowney named ODVA president; global EtherNet/IP seminar series launched.

ODVA has announced the election of new officers at its 2006 CIP Networks Conference and 11th Annual Meeting of Members. In addition, the organization has announced a variety of new global activities and initiatives for CIP Networks and hosted presentations focusing on several leading-edge manufacturing network technologies. Representatives of 60 member organizations from around the world attended this meeting, which was held Feb. 20-23 in Phoenix, AZ.
 
The newly elected ODVA officers are:

  • President: Doug McEldowney
  • Executive Director: Katherine Voss
  • Treasurer: Steve Freedman
  • Chief Technology Officer: Rich Harwell
  • Secretary: Katherine Voss.

Elected representatives for the Regular Membership include Dave Dodds and Steve Freedman on the ODVA Board of Directors and Jörgen Palmhager on the ODVA Technical Review Board.
 
ODVA also presented the first in a new series of seminars focusing on the technology and business benefits of implementing EtherNet/IP. The seminars, titled “EtherNet/IP: The Proven and Complete Solution for Manufacturing Automation,” will be offered at various locations in countries around the world in 2006, including China, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, the United Kingdom, and the USA.  An additional series, “EtherNet/IP: Quick Start,” designed for vendors interested in learning the steps required to build an EtherNet/IP product, also will be offered globally this year. 
 
It was also announced that the future adaptation of CIP previously known as “Project CipNetSA” has been formally named “CompoNet.” This new CIP Network is targeted at applications dominated by simple sensors and actuators, and an introductory training session was given during the conference’s Training Track.
 
Other newly announced activities include recognizing and supporting ODVA members who, as part of “The CIP Conformity Club,” have made a commitment to conformance testing their products.  And, according to ODVA Executive Director Katherine Voss, new initiatives related to CIP Motion, EtherNet/IP Safety and the US Council for Automotive Research will be announced during the next six weeks.
 
Annual meeting presentations focused on the hot topics of Power Over Ethernet (Phoenix Contact) and Intelligent Networked Manufacturing (Cisco Systems), and included a panel of experts discussing what’s ahead for EtherNet/IP. White Papers related to a range of topics including CIP Sync, CIP Motion, CIP Safety on EtherNet/IP, Successfully Designing EtherNet/IP Devices for Harsh Areas, FDT/DTM, and CompoNet were presented during the event’s Technical Track. To view the presentations given at ODVA’s 2006 CIP Networks Conference and 11th Annual Meeting or for more information on new initiatives announced during the meeting, please visit www.odva.org.