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Friday, May 16, 2008 |
Automation Minutes Podcast published. Thoughts on Microsoft/Yahoo and HP/EDS with automation spin. Also report from Texas trip and thoughts on ISA100.
Automation Minutes Podcast published. Thoughts on Microsoft/Yahoo and HP/EDS with automation spin. Also report from Texas trip and thoughts on ISA100.
9:59:31 PM 
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Tony from the Factory software blog adds a little analysis on my post yesterday from the Siemens PLM new product:
No, not a breakthrough - just adding direct modeling to their parametric CAD software. Some companies have been promoting direct modeling for a long time (e.g. Kubotek, CoCreate), but I'd say the current rush was started by Spaceclaim, then PTC bought CoCreate, now Siemens "Synchronous" CAD. Since I'm not a MCAD user, I can't judge how good it is. My guess is that it's a good thing, but overhyped. #
Scott Koffman points to an interesting thread (I'm just saying interesting, not that I necessarily agree with all the comments) about the Rockwell acquisition of Incuity post.
11:53:57 AM
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This is an interesting post on the Wurldtech blog about developing policies for vulnerability disclosure. Any thoughts on this sensitive topic?
11:43:16 AM
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There are two news items from the ISA100 Wireless Networking committee this week. Behind the scenes, there is still considerable debate about how to handle the WirelessHart standard. But the first letter ballot of the ISA100.11a Working Group is underway. After an initial flurry of posturing by various companies about whether there should be just one ubiquitous standard for all wireless networks used in manufacturing, rational heads prevailed and the group has settled on developing a family of standards revolving around various technologies and applications.
The ballot opened on Monday, 5 May, and will close on Tuesday, 3 June. ISA100.11a Working Group members may vote on the ballot, and may provide editorial or technical comments.
"This draft standard reflects a collaborative effort between end users and vendors on the ISA100.11a Working Group, and that's what makes this standard relevant," said Jim Reizner, Section Head, Corporate
Engineering, Procter & Gamble, and co-chair of the ISA100 Users Working Group. "The end user community will benefit from the ISA100.11a standard once it's approved, and we're on our way to making that happen."
The ISA100.11a standard is designed to provide a wireless industrial process automation network to address control, alerting, and monitoring applications plant-wide. The standard focuses on battery powered field devices with the ability to scale to large installations. It addresses wireless infrastructure, interfaces to legacy host applications plus security, and network management requirements in a functionally scalable
manner.
"We're thrilled to release the draft standard for letter ballot," said ISA100 co-chair Patrick Schweitzer of ExxonMobil Research and Engineering. "The ISA100.11a contributors have worked very hard to develop an open standard that's simple for users to implement and deploy. This is an important first step in a thorough approval process outlined in ISA guidelines. We look forward to input from the working group members to ensure a clear, concise, effective standard for end users and suppliers around the world."
In addition to balloting on the initial standard, another group is working on methods for testing products to the standard to assure users that the products will work within the network.
The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute, with an initial membership of nine major companies, will provide assured device compliance and interoperability with the ISA100.11a standard, an important development for users planning to deploy ISA100.11a standard compliant devices into their facilities. The early members of the Institute, including Shell, Chevron, Procter & Gamble, Airsprite, Honeywell, Invensys, Nivis, Shenyang Institute of Automation, and Yokogawa, have handled the development phase of the program and expect to formally launch the Institute this summer.
The Institute has retained a technical director, Jay Werb, to coordinate the technical aspects of assured interoperability and compliance with the ISA100.11a standard. The Institute is currently developing ISA100.11a standard test points that will be used as a basis for conformance requirements in a test specification that is scheduled for May completion. To expedite development of compliance tools, the effort is being undertaken concurrently with the recently released Working Group draft letter ballot. The developed test points will be finalized in close collaboration with ISA100, and used by WCI to conduct
compliance tests.
A Wireless Device Test Kit (DTK) is also under development for testing device compliance with the ISA100.11a standard. It is scheduled for availability in the second half of 2008, and will be demonstrated in the ISA100 booth at the 2008 ISA EXPO in Houston, 12-14 October.
In the short term, the Institute will test devices for compliance to a reasonable number of profiles defined by ISA100, and will collaborate openly and proactively with ISA100 to define the key profiles that are
needed in the marketplace. In the long term, WCI expects to test devices for compliance to any profile that is of interest to its members, not necessarily restricted to profiles that are defined by ISA100. Because real world testing is critical to the success of the ISA100.11a standard, the Institute is establishing customer beta sites with on-site activities scheduled to begin late this year. The Institute is also developing, in conjunction with ISA, a five-course wireless training curriculum. The curriculum includes a device product developer's training course planned for presentation during ISA EXPO 2008 in Houston in October 2008.
The Institute's founding members have established an ISA100.11a standard alpha test bed using a preliminary ISA100.11a device stack and associated management software. This test bed was successfully demonstrated at the ISA100 meeting in Chongqing, China in April of this year. Three vendors participated in the demonstration, providing interoperability among multiple vendors utilizing two radio platforms. The Institute is welcoming and encouraging other vendors to participate in this demonstration for our future venues later this year. These include the ISA Wireless Summit next week in Cleveland, OH; the ISA100
meeting 23-26 June in Nice, France; the ISA100 meeting planned for August at the ISA Headquarters in Raleigh, NC; and ISA EXPO 2008 in October.
The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute will give a status report and hold an open Q&A session at the ISA100 Wireless Solutions Summit in Cleveland, Ohio, on 20 May at 12:30 p.m.
10:52:21 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Gary Mintchell.
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