At the 2018 ARC Forum, conducted February 12-15 in Orlando, Florida, Ted Masters, president & CEO of FieldComm Group, spoke with Harry Forbes, research director for ARC Advisory Group about the digital transformation of the process industries and FieldComm Group's place in it.
The discussion, included in a new YouTube video, explained how current developments such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 are focused on digital transformation of the field device network. This effort will help industrial organizations transition from reactive to predictive maintenance and optimize asset management strategies to improve operations and reduce costs. The goal is to use digitally available information from existing, installed field instruments to improve safety, operations, and reliability.
“Historically, it has been very complicated and difficult to get valuable information out of devices and into systems where it is needed,” Masters said. “Moreover, modern initiatives like IIoT demand standardization from the device protocol level all the way up to the cloud. FieldComm Group is addressing these challenges with solutions like the FDI standard, which helps simplify device integration. FDI brings data, regardless of the supplier or protocol, into the host system in a very standardized way.”
Masters also described common issues with field device management and the ongoing development of a standard process automation device information model.
To view the ARC Forum interview, please visit FieldComm Group’s YouTube page.
