In a presentation at the 2018 ARC Forum in Orlando, FL, FieldComm Group and OPC Foundation presented their joint vision for creating a protocol-independent PA-DIM specification to implement the requirements of the NAMUR Open Architecture (NOA). PROFIBUS/PROFINET International is also participating in this effort.
FieldComm Group President and CEO Ted Masters stated, “The goal of PA-DIM, when used alongside registered products that support FieldComm Group and PI’s joint FDI technology, is to simplify field device integration to systems and clouds, as recommended by NAMUR and ZVEI, by standardizing on a single information model that supports the many field device protocols used in process automation. This includes HART, FOUNDATION Fieldbus, ISA100.11a, PROFIBUS PA, PROFINET and WirelessHART.”
OPC Foundation President and Executive Director Stefan Hoppe commented, “Using the OPC UA-based PA-DIM with FDI products will enable end users to dramatically reduce time-to-market for advanced analytics, Big Data, and enterprise cloud solutions that can often rely on information from thousands of geographically dispersed field devices employing multiple process automation protocols.”
Dr. Peter Wenzel, executive director, PI Germany, also confirmed the importance of PA-DIM to the industrial automation industry. He said, “Industry 4.0 requires a high degree of digitization and standardization, which triggers a need for a series of future-oriented innovations in the field of industrial automation. For PI, PA-DIM is one of the essential enabling technologies that support this fact. PI is looking forward to continuing the years of successful cooperation with FieldComm Group and OPC Foundation in the new field of standardization of PA-DIM.”
Building on the success of PA-DIM standardization, FieldComm Group now has a liaison agreement in place with The Open Group/Open Process Automation Forum. As part of the agreement, the OPA Forum and Open Group have joined the membership of FieldComm Group – further underscoring the importance and relevance of its technologies and their fit-for-future process automation architectures. This and other related developments place FieldComm Group at the center of a global effort to digitally transform the process industry to realize the benefits brought by IIoT and Industry 4.0.
“FieldComm Group technologies, such as Function Blocks and FDI, are important enablers of interoperability, interchangeability, and portability in the standards-based open process automation architecture envisioned by OPAF,” said Don Bartusiak, co-chair, Open Process Automation Forum.
Standards development working groups are actively engaged in finalizing specifications for the first release of PA-DIM during the first half of 2019.
For more information, please visit the FieldComm Group website.
