I just read that the new FDI Corporation is already showing benefits with prototypes of the first FDI components –proof that the concepts being proposed will work have been demonstrated on an ABB system. The prototypes include communications with HART, FF and Profibus protocol devices. The article on Control Engineering Europe’s web site http://www.controlengeurope.com/article/46341/First-working-prototype-of... also includes expected delivery dates for the remainder of the project indicating all the parts should be ready by the end of 2012.

From 'The Great Kanduski: Best Practices in Industrial Networking'

I had the opportunity to attend the Fieldbus Foundation Seminar in Vancouver last week and was not only pleasantly surprised by the turn out, some folks drove up from Seattle, but more importantly the fact that several EPC companies were represented. This was the second of the 2010 North America seminar series and next up is St. Louis in April.

From 'The Great Kanduski: Best Practices in Industrial Networking'

There is new hope for End Users that a uniform interface to the rich information such as diagnostics and related material in smart instruments may soon be available. This is because a number of supplier companies have joined the FDI cooperation project that initially consisted of the major technology trade organizations, FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communication Foundation, OPC Foundation and PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation.From 'The Great Kanduski: Best Practices in Industrial Networking'

John Eidar Simensen of Institute for Energy Technology offered a methodology using Baysian Belief Networks for estimating the complexity of critical instrumentation and control systems. This is an ongoing project which may provide the first real metrics for complexity after years of trying.

From 'Sound Off! Editors' Blog'

In the latest edition of "Profinews" (North American Edition) dated 19 March 2008, but published last night, editor Carl Henning awarded what he called the "2008 Golde...

From 'Sound Off! Editors' Blog'

There are several things of extreme interest in the following press release from Siemens. First, that a major chemical company is investing in a greenfield plant in North America. Second, that the plant will be the largest Profibus PA installation in North America. Third, it will be one of the largest installations of redundant fieldbus anywhere.

Of interest to the WBF crowd, this is going to be one hanging big batch plant.

Somebody posted on the Automation discussion list at Control.com a cou...

From 'Sound Off! Editors' Blog'

Carl Henning responded to my post about the Profibus newsletter. I am promoting it to the main blog:

When I was a user of automation technology I wanted to know how the technology I chose was doing. I could be more certain of continuing support if I chose a successful technology. So this article would be important to me as a user. But there are a lot of other articles in the newsletter (http://us.profibus.com/newsletters/newsletter_14/issue14.htm). In fact the node count story is one of the...

From 'Sound Off! Editors' Blog'

This came in from the recent Profibus newsletter:

THE MOST SUCCESSFUL FIELDBUS IN HISTORY: PI, the umbrella organization of PROFIBUS and PROFINET, recently announced that PROFIBUS passed an important milestone in 2006. A further 3.4 million PROFIBUS-equipped devices were sold. Not only was this the largest annual total ever but it also brought the total number of installed nodes to 18.8 million. How do we know how ma...

From 'Sound Off! Editors' Blog'