An Open Letter to the Members of SP100

I sent this letter today to Lois Ferson at ISA and asked her to post it to the SP100 listservs. Dear Fellow Members of SP100, Although several times in the past year it has looked like we were going to become dysfunctional, we have managed to avoid most of the pitfalls we could have landed in. Congratulations are in order for getting to the place we are now, with two basic proposals coalescing around proposals by Emerson and Honeywell. But this is not sufficient. It is my fervent belief that it would be a terrible error to consider creating a "two-headed hydra" standard which says that both proposals are equally acceptable. Jose Gutierrez and I have been saying for some time that we have only one way to avoid a repetition of the SP50 debacle. That is to ensure that this committee does not degenerate into the same type of "religious war" that SP50 did. We are engineers and scientists and automation professionals. Let's step up to the plate and do some science. We need to develop a testing modality similar to the one Gutierrez' 802.15.4 committee did, and employ neutral third-party laboratories to evaluate each of the proposals. I suggest ORNL,INL and Sandia. Other suggestions are welcome. Once we have actual data we can determine which of the proposals is, in fact, better, and either adopt it or migrate to some proposal that is better than the two we currently have under consideration. Otherwise, we will report out either a useless two-headed hydra or become enmeshed (pun definitely intended) in a technology war none of us wants...especially the end user community. I have discussed this with many members of this body, and found substantial support for the position Dr. Gutierrez and I are taking. I recommend strongly that we move forward with testing as soon as practical. Now for the nitty and the gritty. I recommend that ISA should be willing to pay at least 50% of the cost of such testing, with the balance being made up by contributions from the member companies of this body. I will be posting this open letter on my blog. We've done well so far, so let's finish strong and get a standard out that the end user community will use and be happy with. Best, Walt Boyes Editor in Chief Control magazine www.controlglobal.com blog:Sound OFF!! http://waltboyes.livejournal.com _________________ Putman Media Inc. 555 W. Pierce Rd. Suite 301 Itasca, IL 60143 630-467-1301 x368 [email protected]