Andy Verwer has over 30 years of experience working and teaching within the automation and control industry. Andy was, until recently, Principal Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University teaching automation and control. Over this time, Andy and his colleague, Jack Golten (deceased), developed and sold several software packages for simulation and design of control systems and together wrote a highly successful text book under the company name “Golten & Verwer Ltd”. Andy and Jack together developed an international reputation for quality training materials and won the Royal Mail partnership award for engineering education. Andy has also worked closely with the company “Bytronic Ltd” to develop teaching equipment and materials for automation and control such as an inverted pendulum control system, batch process trainer and process control and instrumentation rigs.

Over the last ten years Andy has created and run the Automation Systems Centre (ASCent) based at Manchester Metropolitan University. This centre is the accredited PROFIBUS International Competency Centre (PICC) for the UK and provides training and consultancy for PROFIBUS, PROFINET, AS-i and Open PLC technologies. By far the most important and profitable leg of ASCent’s activities is PROFIBUS training. For example, the UK water industry is a major user of PROFIBUS and many of the UK utilities companies have specified that all engineers and technicians involved with the design, installation, commissioning and maintenance of PROFIBUS systems must be qualified to at least Certified PROFIBUS Installer level. Many other industry sectors are also moving towards PROFIBUS and AS-i for example, airport baggage-handling systems, automated material handling and storage systems and pharmaceuticals etc.

Andy Verwer is very active within the PROFIBUS International organisation and is a key member of the working groups for “training” and “installation”. The Certified PROFIBUS Installer Course was developed by Andy and he had a major contribution in the preparation of the PROFIBUS International installation and commissioning guide books. Andy has also been a key organiser in the annual PROFIBUS International User Conference which has run for five consecutive years. Similarly, the Certified AS-i Engineer Course and Certified Open PLC Engineer Course were both developed by Andy. Andy currently holds the position of “Technical Officer” within the PROFIBUS Group.