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Fieldbus Foundation in copyright deal with Prolist International

06/04/2009

AUSTIN, Texas — The Fieldbus Foundation today announced it has signed a copyright agreement with Prolist International. The agreement allows Prolist to publish Foundation fieldbus parameter names and definitions in its standardized process control device/system specifications and database.

Headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, Prolist International is a not-for-profit organization composed of corporate (automation manufacturers and end users) and university members. It is the successor organization to the Project Group “Lists of Properties" supported by NAMUR, the international process industries’ end-user group, and Zentralverband Elektrotechnik- und Elektronikindustrie e.V. (ZVEI), the German electrical and electronic manufacturers' association. NAMUR and ZVEI have collaborated to define and record properties and Lists of Properties (LOPs) for process control/automation devices and systems.

Prolist International seeks reduced engineering and transaction costs for procurement and sales in the area of process control technology. This includes integration of the workflows of all parties involved in plant life-cycle management.  The basis for this effort has been created in the form of machine-readable descriptions of the properties of process automation components that are relevant for engineering purposes.

The working results of Prolist are published as LOPs in the NAMUR Recommendation NE 100 “Use of Lists of Properties in Process Control Engineering Workflows,” which provides a method for standardizing the descriptions of process control and instrumentation equipment. As such, it supports data exchange between systems in a customer-supplier relationship. For more information, visit www.prolist.org.

Fieldbus Foundation President and CEO Rich Timoney praised his organization’s involvement with Prolist Interantional. “The Fieldbus Foundation is pleased to take part in Prolist through this copyright agreement,” said Timoney. “We support the long-term goal of Prolist, which is to optimize processes throughout the entire plant life cycle at every point where information systems exchange data on process control devices. This endeavor will help companies reduce transaction costs by an electronic data exchange format which vendors, owner/operators and EPC firms can use for communications.”

Timoney added, “As the world’s leading process industry fieldbus solution, Foundation technology is key to the global adoption of the Prolist initiative. Ultimately, we believe this effort will result in the establishment of an international standard in cooperation with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Society of Automation (ISA).”

Supported by a “who’s who” of major process automation suppliers and end-users, Prolist International is creating lists of properties (eSpec Sheets) covering all classes of process control devices. Another task has been development of an easy-to-use Web server for creating and maintaining instrumentation eSpec Sheets. The organization has also developed application tools for handling files and creating an XML-exchange format supported by SAP.