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Monday, February 11, 2008 |
I went to ARC with a hidden agenda--looking for speakers for our third annual Packaging Automation Forum. I only got a couple of leads. Anyone out there doing something cool in packaging machine automation that you'd like to share with 150-200 of your peers May 20 in Chicago? If so, send a query to Gary.
9:35:27 PM 
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The press release just came through from OMAC about its membership campaign. I alluded to something in a post from ARC, but wanted to wait for the official word. I believe that OMAC is at a crossroads. It can rest on its laurels of the accomplishments of the Packaging Working Group, or it can decide to forge ahead and finish the job. This new membership campaign is an interesting first step. Take a look and see if you can help move the organization forward.
The new OMAC Corporate Membership Program is designed to provide a value-added proposition for its members by providing a communication and collaboration mechanism that enables, promotes, and facilitates:
* Collective derivation of common solutions for both technical and non-technical issues in the development, implementation, and commercialization of open, modular architecture control (OMAC) technologies
* OMAC development among control technology providers and OMAC adoption among end users, OEMs, and system integrators
* Collective derivation and capture of OMAC requirements and operating experience from users, software developers, hardware builders and OEMs in manufacturing applications
* Accelerated development and convergence of industry- and government-developed technology guidelines to one set that satisfies common use requirements
* Collaboration with users groups around the world in pursuit of common international technology guidelines
There are four major Corporate Member categories. The first category includes Large and Small End Users & Original Equipment Manufactures, which are companies and organizations that purchase OMAC-based automation equipment to produce commercial and/or military products and that supply automation, manufacturing, assembly, and process equipment with integrated OMAC compliant technologies. The second category includes Large and Small Technology Providers, which include companies and organizations that (1) seek to develop, integrate, and/or supply OMAC compliant systems and components, and/or (2) gather, analyze, and disseminate business and technology information on OMAC technologies. The third category includes Non-Profit and Government Organization. The final category includes Academia groups.
The Benefits of OMAC Corporate membership vary slightly based on which category the company belongs to. The general benefits include
* Use of the OMAC and OMAC Working Group logos
* Access to OMAC Working Groups via direct introduction to Working Group Chairs
* Company member discount to all OMAC conferences and symposiums
* Listing as an OMAC Corporate Member on OMAC mailings and promotions, where applicable
-OMAC Technical Conference (Call for Papers, Preliminary Program, & Final Program)
-OMAC organizational brochure
-OMAC Update, quarterly newsletter (featured in OMAC Corporate Sponsor spotlight section with logo, company description, and web address)
* Company Logo and link to company website listed on OMAC website
* Access to OMAC best practices and technical guidelines (e.g. OPW Packaging Guidelines, MUGSecure Best Practices)
* One seat on the OMAC technical advisory board (TAB)
* Opportunity to post an organizational article in the OMAC Update, quarterly newsletter
* Priority as a demo sponsor/participant for OMAC demonstrations (i.e. Pack Expo Packaging Line Integration demonstration)
One of the most important benefits OMAC Corporate Members receive is a seat on the OMAC Technical Advisory Board (TAB). The primary purpose of the TAB is to advise the OMAC Board of Directors on the organization's
technical direction, strategy, objectives, and goals. Each member of the TAB will be an appointed representative for each of the OMAC Corporate Member companies. This opportunity is a Corporate Member benefit only,
and will last the term of one year or the length of time the company remains a paid Corporate Member of OMAC.
For its first two years of operation (2008-2010), the three co-chairs of the TAB will be appointed by the Board of Directors. Two of those three co-chairs have already been named: Doug Gray of Coors and Bob Tain of Okuma. During subsequent years, the TAB co-chairs will be one-year term elected positions, with nominations coming from TAB members.
Some of the tasks to be performed by the TAB include conducting quarterly meetings to address OMAC initiatives, providing formal reports to the Board of Directors on the status of and progress made in all OMAC initiatives, promoting and supporting all OMAC programs and initiatives, and serving as the technical voice and conduit between OMAC membership and OMAC leadership.
The underlying goal of the OMAC TAB is to provide Corporate Members with a voice. This voice will allow them to exchange ideas, concerns, and issues concerning their companies and the industry, and to guide the direction and initiatives of OMAC.
Bruno Kisala, Managing Director of the Automation Federation, elaborated on the intent of the TAB. "The TAB will serve as the voice of our Corporate Members, a mechanism that never existed in the past. It will give our Corporate Members the ability to identify common industry issues and challenges, allow them to articulate their thoughts to the OMAC leadership for evaluation and action, and serve as a conduit for greater industry collaboration in developing solutions. The members of the TAB are in an excellent position to influence change and shape the technical direction and future of OMAC," he said.
9:32:56 PM
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If you don't go back and check comments to my postings, sometimes you can miss good stuff. Tom Wallace fills out where I was taking shortcuts on my FDT/EDDL discussion. It's a great post that matches what I was trying to do -- balanced, fair and informative. Thanks, Tom.
6:04:52 PM
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Last week during the ARC Forum, I had a rather unique opportunity to hear Emerson's view of the EDDL versus FDT discussion. I also had two opportunities to chat with FDT representative to both hear the organization's latest news and to verify a couple of technical points. Then twice this week including last night at the airport, the subject came up.
This seemingly simple description of two technologies that don't compete is fraught with all kinds of subtleties that I will (I sincerely hope) avoid. The essence is -- EDDL is a text file placed in an instrument or other device by its manufacturer that describes the device (manufacturer, model number, descriptors, and much more). DCS software for both engineering and display looks for that text file as part of its work. This is a large part of the success of Foundation Fieldbus networking--the fact that you can know what's out there on the net and get a good description. The fact that this is a text file is crucial to the argument that you don't need FDT-DTD. As a text file (much like XML, for example), it is operating system agnostic. I don't know how many of you are using non-Windows machines, but if you are, you can still read EDDL.
Meanwhile, many instrumentation vendors felt that EDDL didn't have enough power to handle the complexities of many of their instruments. In addition, many felt that they would like to have more control over how their instruments looked in the DCS software. (They'd like a little more corporate identity on the page, for instance.) So they developed a software application that uses EDDL and, in their opinion, enhances it by enabling the two items I just mention plus more. The rub is that FDT is based on Microsoft Windows. The EDDL-only purists believe that this is a major drawback--that an instrumentation vendor and its users must have different versions of the DTD for each instrument for each version of Windows. The FDT group counters by saying that to date experience shows that that is not accurate. In fact, no one has had to re-write a descriptor to match Windows upgrades.
The EDDL-only camp points to another flaw in the FDT system. If each instrumentation and device supplier has power over the way its products are displayed, then the potential exists for operator confusion when they look up different instruments with different display styles. Recognizing that problem, the FDT Group has released a style guide for suppliers using the technology in order to standardize the displays.
Actually, the Fieldbus Foundation had also recognized some of the holes in EDDL and worked to solve them within the standard--releasing Enhanced EDDL. I saw a demo of this at ISA2007, and it looks very good. The unfortunate thing is that it came out a little late after FDT was already gaining corporate adherents.
The FDT group contends that these are complementary technologies, while Emerson (and I presume others, but I haven't heard from them-but I bet I do now) contends that you really don't need both. Here's my analysis from what I've learned so far. Since Emerson has huge market share in sectors of instrumentation and field devices, if you are standardized on them then you will probably be happy with EDDL only, or with Enhanced EDDL. If you have a mixture of suppliers, then you'll have to evaluate whether you get all the benefits you need with just the EDDL (but you should check out the Enhanced EDDL), or whether you'd like the vendor-specific enhancements that comes with FDT.
Oh, and then there is a joint EDDL-FDT working group trying to bring the camps together. I hope that one works. I doubt that FDT is going away.
There, I really cleared things up, didn't I.
8:40:47 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Gary Mintchell.
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