Finally!!
We have been told by an extremely reliable source that Yokogawa has joined the HART Communications Foundation board of directors. Takahashi Kimi will be the board member for Yokogawa.
In the past, Yokogawa had been kept off the HCF board because there was no open slot, but recently the bylaws were changed to provide for up to 7 members. Yokogawa makes the sixth. Only a four member majority will be necessary to adopt measures brought before the board.
One can only speculate on the different path wireless sensor networks might have taken if Yokogawa had been allowed to join the HART Communications Foundation board years ago, when they first wanted to. One speculates that the course of the ISA100.11a and especially ISA100.12 deliberations might have been significantly different, because the two companies totally opposed to making a standard that was interoperable and interchangeable with IEC62599-WirelessHART were Honeywell and...Yokogawa.
Now that Yokogawa is no longer shut out of the "big boy network" club, perhaps there will be renewed interest in producing a standard that can be a true global wireless standard, because that's what all the end users want.
Yokogawa and the HCF plan to announce the news sometime during the Yokogawa North American User Group meeting here in New Orleans this week.
As I said to my informant, "Well, it is just about damn time!"
Congratulations to Yokogawa for persistence, and to HCF for finally figuring out how to enroll the sixth largest field device manufacturer (and therefore one of the largest manufacturers of HART devices in the world) on the team.
