Control News from Europe May 2008

Word on the Houston street is that Yokogawa is to adopt the MTL-Eric Byres developed Tofino as its standard cyber security solution for process automation systems.  

Fieldbus Foundation SIF

The Fieldbus Foundation has announced plans for Foundation for Safety Instrumented Functions (Foundation SIF) demonstrations in The Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Germany and the U.S. Scheduled for May 2008 is the demonstration at Shell Global Solutions in Amsterdam where a DCS-controlled demo rig is to be constructed with graphic panels showing safety devices and SIF functions, including an operator interface for partial stroke testing (PST) and asset management diagnostic information. The aim of the demonstration is to test safety valves with partial stroking capability, as well as various pressure and temperature devices. The installation will include three fieldbus segments with hardware from three different suppliers, enabling the integration with asset management and Basic Process Control System (BPCS) platforms to be assessed.

The SIF protocol, which has Protocol Type Approval from TÜV Rheinland, meets the requirements of IEC 61508. No changes were required to the existing Foundation fieldbus protocol to add the SIF protocol extensions. Further demonstrations are planned at Saudi Aramco in Dhahran, BP in Gelsenkirchen and Chevron in Houston.

Siemens Reorg

Further suggestions of ongoing upheaval at Siemens come with reports in the German press in recent weeks that the company is planning to reorganize its international operations into a number of regional clusters; for example, combining Austria, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic into an eastern Europe group and France, Italy and Spain into a similar grouping. The move, which is predicted to be announced alongside the second quarter results at the end of April, is said to represent the latest phase in CEO Peter Loescher’s drive to reduce internal overheads and bring profitability in line with North American competitors. Meanwhile Siemens has announced the sale of its Siemens Wireless Modules operation to a consortium of private equity investors including Granville Baird of the U.K. and T-Mobile Venture Fund, part of Deutsche Telekom. Siemens WM is a significant player in the machine-to-machine or M2M market but, according to observers, has been constrained by being part of Siemens’ industrial controls business with its focus on the industrial sensor control sector, when its potential market is much broader.

Call for Membership

The Interoperability Compliance Institute (IICI), which has been established as the official compliance testing organization for standards such as WBF’s Business to Manufacturing Markup Language (B2MML) has issued a call for membership, following completion of preliminary work by its Technical Advisory Board (TAB). Based on the belief that interoperability standards allow manufacturers to build lean IT systems through common definitions of data and processes, IICI will address standards issues and compliance services, such as the integration of business and manufacturing systems following ISA95 data exchange using B2MML, certification services for software or applications to ensure they comply with specific criteria, testing of defined compliance levels and ensuring industrial schemas and associated standards are aligned. Future services might include the WBF BatchML Data Exchange Schema Standard, schemas related to ISA95 Part 4 and certificates of training for ISA95 and WBF Data Exchange implementation programs. Members will be entitled to use the IICI-certified logo on products and systems that meet the compliance specifications.