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ISA Exhibit Marks Fieldbus Foundation’s 10th Anniversary

Leading fieldbus organization reflects on decade of achievements

HOUSTON, Texas, October 5, 2004 — The Fieldbus Foundation will present one of the largest fieldbus technology exhibits in its history at the ISA EXPO 2004 Exhibition & Conference, to be held October 5-7 at the Reliant Center in Houston, Texas. The exhibit highlights a series of events that the foundation is conducting during 2004 to mark its 10th year of operation.

As the world’s leading not-for-profit trade organization dedicated to fieldbus technology, the Fieldbus Foundation led the effort to develop an open, interoperable, international fieldbus protocol. The resulting technology—FOUNDATION™ fieldbus—changed the face of industrial automation.

FOUNDATION fieldbus is an all-digital, two-way communications system that interconnects field equipment on a single network. An enabling technology supporting a true distributed automation architecture, it is intended for use in mission-critical environments where the proper transfer and handling of data, and control loop integrity, are essential.

With FOUNDATION fieldbus, users realize significant operational improvements and business benefits. These include reduced downtime, greater manufacturing flexibility, reduced process variability, improved asset utilization, lower maintenance costs, higher quality products, improved safety and enhanced regulatory compliance.

Based in Austin, Texas, the Fieldbus Foundation represents over 350 companies, their subsidiaries and affiliates worldwide. Members include almost all major suppliers of control systems and instrumentation, and many of the largest end users of plant automation technology.

Fieldbus Foundation President and CEO Richard Timoney said his organization has achieved many significant milestones in its 10-year history. “The foundation, our members, and users of the technology have made remarkable progress over the last decade,” said Timoney. “Each year, FOUNDATION fieldbus experiences an accelerating rate of global adoption, with major installations throughout the oil & gas, petrochemical, power, paper, pharmaceutical and consumer goods industries.

“To date, the foundation has tested and registered over 250 fully interoperable fieldbus devices. Eleven host systems have successfully completed our Host Interoperability Support Test (HIST). In addition, more than 400,000 fieldbus devices and 5,000 host systems have been shipped or installed at user sites around the world.”

Fieldbus Foundation Chairman John Berra praised the hard work and commitment of the foundation staff and volunteers over the years. "I consider my association with the Fieldbus Foundation to be one of the best and most rewarding experiences of my career,” said Berra. “I was there from the beginning, and have had the privilege of working with some of the finest and most dedicated people in the industry. Together, we pioneered a technology that is now delivering meaningful benefits to the process automation industry. We changed the industry for the better, and I'm proud to have been a part of it."

The path to fieldbus technology began in the 1970s with the first attempts to distribute control functionality to the field level. With the introduction of the Distributed Control System (DCS), processing plants were able to distribute intelligent control throughout the facility. However, field devices had little, if any, communication with each other and sent minimal data to the DCS. Typically, field devices communicated to controllers using pneumatic or 4-20 mA analogue signals.

In the 1980s, considerable effort went into developing a digital communication standard for field devices. Several process control suppliers had also started work on their own proprietary digital communication standard. These multiple efforts resulted in a handful of competing protocols, none of which could work together.

Eventually, members of the two competing fieldbus standards organizations joined forces. On September 23, 1994, members of the World Factory Instrumentation Protocol (WorldFIP North America) and the Interoperable Systems Project (ISP) Foundation merged to form the Fieldbus Foundation.

Under the foundation’s leadership, controls manufacturers, end users, academic institutions and other interested parties worked hand-in-hand to develop an open, non-proprietary fieldbus protocol enabling unprecedented levels of device and subsystem interoperability. The new organization completed its H1 draft preliminary specifications in May 1995, and registered the first H1 fieldbus devices in September 1998. It completed High Speed Ethernet (HSE) draft preliminary specifications in September 1999, and registered the first HSE linking devices in May 2001.

John Pittman, who served as foundation president and ceo from 1996 to 2000, recalled the camaraderie of technical team participants. “We must acknowledge the monumental achievement of the automation companies and their dedicated engineers who developed the most comprehensive and effective fieldbus technology in the world—and did it in a vendor-neutral environment,” he said. “Many key engineers from the end user community also shared their knowledge with the development teams and actively participated in the End User Councils.”

Honeywell’s Paul Griem, who serves as secretary of the foundation, was involved during the early years of the organization. He was impressed by how competitors cooperated to help the consortium grow. “We worked together on so many tasks: specifications, application guides, field trials, testing tools, training courses, and more,” he said. “In a way, with all that's been accomplished, the ten years passed very quickly!”

Joe Duffy of Emerson Process Management chairs the foundation’s technical steering committee, and worked with his peers to develop a fieldbus technology to meet the diverse requirements of industry members. Duffy reflected, “The organization was committed to the development of a communication protocol supporting a true distributed control system, as well as a device test and registration process providing end users and device manufacturers with confidence that products with the FF mark were truly interoperable.”

Following completion of its specifications, the Fieldbus Foundation marketed FOUNDATION fieldbus to both automation suppliers and end users. Chuck Micallef, formerly of Yokogawa, served as the foundation’s director, technical promotions. He remembers the marketing and communication challenges involved with educating the marketplace on this exciting and promising technology.

“Although it seemed that fieldbus was always just a few years away, the dedication and commitment of all parties involved made it a reality,” said Micallef. “The foundation’s marketing committee was comprised of members from competing companies who were able to come together and diligently work toward the introduction of an open, digital communication protocol. Their dedication provided an array of marketing programs and media attention that propelled fieldbus technology into the limelight.”

He added, “One of the most interesting marketing events was ISA 1996 in Chicago, IL, where we ‘wired’ McCormick Place with over 2,000 feet of orange fieldbus wire—draped from the rafters. Although the technology was not quite ready for ‘prime time,’ we were able to demonstrate digital communicating devices, multi-drop segments, fieldbus-capable control systems and device interoperability.”

A critical step in the industry’s acceptance of FOUNDATION fieldbus was its approval by global standards organizations. In December 1999, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) voted to approve the IEC 61158 international fieldbus standard. The FOUNDATION fieldbus H1 and HSE specifications are included in this standard. The CENELEC Technical Bureau voted in March 2000 to add the FOUNDATION fieldbus H1 specifications to EN 50170, the fieldbus Euronorm.

Serving as the foundation’s vice president-standards, Martin Zielinski of Emerson Process Management helped direct the effort to secure international approval of FOUNDATION fieldbus, and saw first-hand how the technology changed the nature of process control. He commented, “Just think of the terms that did not exist before, but now are commonplace. Words like ‘interoperability,’ ‘H1 segment,’ ‘link active scheduler,’ and so forth.”

Ian Verhappen of Syncrude Canada and ICE-Pros, was one of the earliest commercial users of FOUNDATION fieldbus, and took part in several important field trials. Verhappen believes that fieldbus technology has changed the future of industrial automation, including the way control systems are designed. He said, “Digital networking and integration have made true predictive maintenance possible because of the richness of information available across the network.”

Verhappen cited HSE, transducer blocks standardization (enabling true interchangeability of devices) and extended Device Descriptions as having the greatest impact on fieldbus implementation in the coming years.

About the Fieldbus Foundation™
The Fieldbus Foundation is a not-for-profit corporation consisting of nearly 350 leading process and manufacturing automation companies worldwide whose major purpose is to provide an open and neutral environment for the development of an international, interoperable fieldbus. In this environment, end users, manufacturers, universities and research organizations are working together to develop the technology, provide development tools, support and training, coordinate field trials and demonstrations, and enable product interoperability. Visit their web site at www.fieldbus.org.

Automation.com Real-time Information for the Automation Professional May. 24, 2012

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