by Gary Mintchell | Aug 1, 2014 | Automation, News, Operations Management, Organizations, Technology
Even organizations are not immune from the consolidation bug. It had been previously announced that, given a couple of transitions and the similarity of membership and technology, industrial networks organizations the Fieldbus Foundation and the HART Communication Foundation would investigate merger.
Here is the latest news. An unstated reason is significant along with emphasizing a statement within the press release. First, there are leadership changes. Ron Helson, the longtime leader of HART recently retired. I have to believe that Rich Timoney, the longtime Fieldbus leader, is preparing to retire (conjecture on my part, I dont want to rush him). This becomes convenient timing.
Further, look for the sentence “suppliers will also profit.” This is significant. The two organizations have significant overlap, yet basically the same set of suppliers support each. By combining, suppliers can get more return from less investment. Since both technologies are pretty mature and stable, this makes a lot of sense.
The Boards of Directors of the Fieldbus Foundation and the HART Communication Foundation have approved unifying the two Foundations into a new industry organization. The joint statement said the new organization would be “dedicated to the needs of intelligent devices and their integration in the world of Process Automation.”
The combined power of both organizations will serve to protect the investments that end users in Process Automation have made in HART and FOUNDATION fieldbus communication technologies. The mission of the combined organization will be to develop, manage, and promote global standards for integrating devices into automation-system architectures, providing functional solutions for process automation suppliers and end users. Suppliers will also profit from the increased efficiencies in resource utilization, procedure consistency, and member service and support improvements.
The Fieldbus Foundation and HART Communication Foundation have a long history of cooperation. For example, the two worked together to develop common international standards, such as Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) specifications and Field Device Integration (FDI) technology. Combining the organizations offers significant potential for harmonizing the procedures and efforts supporting the two protocols, as well as simplifying each technology’s implementation while better delivering their full benefits in plant operation and maintenance.
The FOUNDATION fieldbus and HART specifications will continue to exist individually, and to evolve into the future. Each protocol will retain its own brand name, trademarks, patents, and copyrights.
The new organization will continue development, support, and promotion of the two existing protocols, and will direct the development, incorporation, and implementation of new and overlapping technologies. Thus, the new organization will eventually serve as the single source for FDI, the sole integration tool for HART and FOUNDATION fieldbus technologies. The name of the proposed organization is not yet finalized.
The next step will be to complete the membership ballot by the end of summer 2014. Following a successful membership vote, legal filings for the creation of a new not-for-profit entity will take place in September 2014. As a final step, it is expected that the new organization offices will be consolidated and located near Austin, Texas, in early 2015.
The leadership of Helson and Timoney cannot be overstated. Their contributions to industrial automation are significant. Many thanks are due them.
by Gary Mintchell | Jun 18, 2014 | Automation, Internet of Things, Operations Management, Technology
The Internet of Things (IoT). Ah, what visions it conjurs. Sensors everywhere. Everything connected.Managers and engineers have the ability to know more about the status of their plants and factories than ever before. They could diagnose, collect data for future development and predictive maintenance, and have a window into all operations.
We have talked about this for years. The reality draws nearer every day. But still, we don’t seem to be seeing adoption and benefits.
My old friend Mark Davidson who is now an analyst with LNS Research, has just posted to his blog a piece called, “What’s Needed to Accelerate IoT in Manufacturing?”
In it he presents some background and discusses some hurdles that remain.
“Small startups, mid-sized companies and major players like ABB, Accenture, AT&T, Bosch, Cisco, Ericsson, GE, Google, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, PTC, Rockwell Automation, SAP, and Siemens are all investing big and staking claim to manufacturing IoT as a key area of future growth. New alliances have been formed over the past year or so – including the Industrial IP Advantage (Cisco, Panduit, and Rockwell Automation) and the Industrial Internet Consortium (AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel).”
The hurdles:
“We concur with the three key hurdles that are briefly stated in the recent GreenBiz blog article http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/05/12/greenbiz-101-what-do-you-need-know-about-internet-things, which is a 101 primer on the IoT, and in the first post of this LNS Research blog series I’d like to expand on Hurdle #1 a bit further.
Hurdle #1: The standards to ensure interoperability are relatively immature when compared to other Internet, enterprise, and manufacturing software systems.
Hurdle #2: Properly addressing new security issues associated with the IoT.
Hurdle #3: Increased costs to add intelligent devices and equipment and the ROI of manufacturing IoT applications.
With today’s systems and applications, we are used to fieldbus standards with interoperable device information profiles, information standards for application to application use – like OPC/OPC UA, and higher level manufacturing information integration models like OAGIS, MIMOSA, ISA 88 and ISA 95. Even with these broadly deployed, there are vendor-specific solutions that fill the remaining integration and interoperability gaps.”
Yes, standards are that double-edged sword. Industries need agreed-upon standards for everyone to build on and accelerate customer adoption. Yet, sometimes developers try to pay lipservice to standards while trying to lock in customers to their proprietary solution. Still, widespread adoption often depends upon neutral standards—unless one company, like a Facebook, can achieve dominance in a market segment and lock all the competitors out. I don’t know if that will happen in manufacturing.
by Gary Mintchell | Sep 25, 2013 | Automation, News, Organizations, Technology
This is a merger that is not totally surprising, given that the two organizations have significant overlapping membership. Plus one organization is in the midst of a leadership change. On the other hand, there is little overlap in technology and application. So this, if it comes off, will be interesting.
The Fieldbus Foundation and the HART Communication Foundation announced Sept. 25 that they have entered into discussions on the potential for merging the two organizations into a single industry foundation dedicated to the needs of intelligent device communications in the world of process automation.
The chairmen of the two organizations—Dr. Gunther Kegel of the Fieldbus Foundation and Mr. Mark Schumacher of the HART Communication Foundation—issued the following statement on behalf of their Boards of Directors:
“We believe combining the resources and capabilities of each foundation into a single organization will provide significant benefits to both end users and suppliers. For end users, a single organization that combines the power of both Fieldbus Foundation and HART Communication Foundation would provide a full solution that addresses every conceivable aspect of field communications and intelligent device management for the process industries. For suppliers, a single organization would create efficiencies in resource utilization, consistency of processes and procedures, and would deliver significant improvements in member services and support.”
The Fieldbus Foundation and HART Communication Foundation have worked extensively together in the past and have a long history of cooperation. For example, the two organizations worked together on the development of common international standards such as Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) and, most recently, the development of the Field Device Integration (FDI) specification. The merger offers potential to harmonize many aspects of the two protocols, making it easier for end users and suppliers to implement the technology and obtain the full benefits of each technology in plant operations and maintenance.
In preliminary discussions, the presidents of the two organizations, Richard J. Timoney of the Fieldbus Foundation and Ted Masters of the HART Communication Foundation, added that many synergies already exist and closed by commenting:
“We are both confident that today’s decision to investigate the merger of these two organizations provides momentum for a major step forward in the evolution of intelligent devices and the world of industrial communications.”
