In order to meet the growing demand for medical products, there is an increasing need for modular biopharmaceutical plants that can be set up quickly anywhere in the world. The use of tried and tested modules for biopharmaceutical plants with an identical design saves the effort required for plant engineering – and thus time and money. Modular plant construction in the pharmaceutical industry is benefiting from the increasing standardization of components.

This is precisely where the benefits of Turck's multiprotocol I/O solutions for machine and plant builders come into their own. Your customers stick to their particular plant standards so that you have to develop and implement strategies for integrating the skids. Turcks' multiprotocol gateway enables your modules to operate in Profinet, Ethernet/IP and Modbus TCP networks without having to adapt the hardware. This means you only need a single gateway model – regardless of the customer. You benefit from shorter development and lead times as well as the reduced inventory costs. At the same time, you enable your customers to also have a considerably shorter time to market.

Modularization and standardization
The interfaces are a critical factor in ensuring flexibility through modularization. Standardization ensures that skids can be exchanged and combined easily. When fitted with Turck's multiprotocol gateways, your modules can connect to each end customer control system automatically. You only need a single gateway model – regardless of the customer. Handling has never been easier thanks to IO-Link and RFID. This enables you to shorten lead times and meet your customers' requirements faster.

What is MTP? 
MTP stands for Module Type Package and refers to a standard for the modularization of plants. The modules have decentralized intelligence and provide their services in a standardized way. MTP files act like a device driver. The higher level, the Process Orchestration Layer (POL), can recognize the function of the MTP modules and base its process control on them accordingly. MTP thus considerably reduces the engineering effort required for modular plants. MTP is the keystone for building a true plug-and-produce plant.

What is multiprotocol Ethernet?
Turck's multiprotocol devices activate the Ethernet protocol used on the network automatically – and with every startup. Multiprotocol devices support Profinet, Modbus TCP and EtherNet/IP protocols. Turck's I/O range also provides a virtually seamless coverage with multiprotocol technology, and includes compact block I/O modules as well as flexible modular systems – for use in a control cabinet (IP20) or use directly in the field (IP67). Turck offers multiprotocol devices for its modular BL20 series gateways for control cabinet mounting and also for the BL67 series for field mounting. IP20 and IP67 block I/O modules including the space saving BL compact series are also available as multiprotocol devices.

Multiprotocol Ethernet gateways and block I/Os
Turck offers powerful solutions to capture data flow efficiently and make existing machinery and products fit for the future. Thanks to key technologies in the areas of fieldbus technology, RFID, sensor technology or connectivity, such as NAT routing, IO-Link or multiprotocol Ethernet, Turck's solutions can be used easily for the interaction between OT and IT. While RFID and IO-Link offer greater flexibility and process safety, tasks such as quality assurance are also supported by the ability to send the diagnostic data of a module to the controller via IO-Link. The modules can also be identified faster in the control system using the multiprotocol gateway via RFID or IO-Link.