FieldComm Group and friends speed Field Device Integration adoption

July 18, 2016
Effort aims to drive FDI to become the global standard for field device integration independent of underlying device protocols.

FieldComm Group (FCG) announced June 22 joint-ownership and management agreements, contracts, standards and events to formalize and accelerate adoption of Field Device Integration (FDI) technology, and drive it to become the global standard for field device integration independent of underlying device protocols. The contracts and agreements include:

Completed contract by FDI technology co-owners FieldComm Group and Profibus/Profinet International to manage IP rights, roadmap and distribution of FDI technology, tools and host components.

Completed contract between FDI partners FieldComm Group, Profibus/Profinet International, OPC Foundation and FDT Group to govern FDI specification enhancement, and leverage FieldComm Group’s Integration Working Group as the collaboration venue for all FDI partners.

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Completed memorandum of understanding between the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) and FieldComm Group that enables WCI’s representatives to hold technology discussions in FCG’s Integration Working Group to incorporate ISA100 Wireless support into FDI technology.

Approved FDI standard in Plenary SC65E, “Device and Integration in enterprise systems.” by the American National Standards Institute.

Endorsement of FDI by the NAMUR international process industry user association in its WG 2.6 Fieldbus Position Paper, “Requirements on an Ethernet communication system for the process industry.”

“FDI technology is a catalyst, and we’ve been working on these contracts and agreements ever since all the FDI LLC’s technology that we own with our co-owners was transferred to FieldComm Group a year ago,” says Ted Masters, president and CEO of FieldComm Group. “The most important part of these efforts is that all FDI contributors can truly cooperate and help each other, while still serving their existing customers and markets.”