Fieldbus Foundation Praises Expanded Collaboration on Field Device Integration

The Fieldbus Foundation recently praised an expanded automation industry collaborative effort intended to accelerate deployment of Field Device Integration (FDI) technology. Key automation suppliers have agreed to enlarge the scope of the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL) Cooperation Team into the FDI Cooperation, which is supporting a uniform device integration solution for process industries across all host systems, devices and protocols as required by end users.

The FDI Cooperation project will initially consist of major industry trade associations, such as the Fieldbus Foundation, FDT Group, HART Communications Foundation, OPC Foundation and PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation; as well as leading control equipment suppliers, including ABB, Emerson Process Management, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens, and Yokogawa.

Fieldbus Foundation President and CEO Rich Timoney commented, “Adoption of a standardised FDI solution is in the best interest of controls & instrumentation suppliers and end users around the world, since it provides a unified path forward for device integration that is based on use case requirements, incorporates the best aspects of each member technology, and eliminates redundancies where they may exist. FDI also does away with double efforts for customers and vendors, and preserves backward compatibility and operating system independence.”