Why IEEE 1394 (“FireWire”) might not be a perfect choice for factory automation today - a case study from the printing industry

Only a couple of years ago IEEE 1394 and derivatives were seen as a promising alternative to already well established standards in industrial communications or even military avionics. Right now it has become pretty quiet around IEEE 1394. This contribution presents why the digital printing industry chose IEEE 1394 and how it tried to adopt it. It then describes the problems the industry stumbled upon and it why these problems are also relevant to other industrial applications. To some extend this showcase adoption process and its problems even seem to be similar to some of todaypsilas realtime Ethernet issues.