Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Automation Minutes podcast posted I've published Automation Minutes 28. 5:30:46 PM    comment []

Foundation Fieldbus not a "fieldbus?" Rich Timoney, executive director of the Fieldbus Foundation, uttered a revolutionary thought at a press conference held during the group's annual meeting in Houston on February 22. "Foundation Fieldbus isn't a fieldbus-it's an architecture," proclaimed Timoney. Actually, the statement may be less revolutionary than appears at first blush. More than wires between devices, Foundation Fieldbus specification includes the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL), an instrument level language that ARC Advisory Group Research Director Larry O'Brien likens to "XML for fieldbus," referring to the eXtensible Markup Language ubiquitous in Internet data communications. Timoney continued with the thought that users don't come to them and say "I want a network." They want an open architecture that allows them to connect many devices to a controller with each capable of being found by the controller and communicate a wide array of information. The meeting had a definite feeling of optimism about the future of Fieldbus, reinforced by a recent market survey of fieldbus protocols-essentially Foundation Fieldbus versus Profibus PA-that found that the former has about two-thirds of the market for fieldbus products and services. Further, much work has been done on interoperability with other standards with a mapping from FF to OPC UA expected yet this year. This effort will enable communication vertically to enterprise systems complementing the current horizontal control architecture communication. Of the several user presentations, all were centered on the interoperability of a variety of instruments with a variety of controllers. 3:29:42 PM    comment []

Project management I recently listened to Barry Flicker on IT Conversations (a great podcast series) talk on project management. Key thought--when you look at problems in the project, make the problem "us" not "them." Only then can you solve it (rather than cast blame--one of the final stages of a project according to a classic joke). Another good thought--don't emphasize tools, look at behaviors. Projects are really a series of commitments--and remember relationships are built on trust. 3:11:11 PM    comment []