08 November 2010
The announcement will be of interest to many fieldbus industry observers as the company has, traditionally, been a keen supporter and promoter of the Electronic Device Description Language (EDDL), in favour of FDL.Commenting on the announcement, Glenn Schulz, Managing Director of the FDT Group, said: "We are delighted to have Emerson join our leadership team. Their broad industry footprint and their respected position in the marketplace will accelerate the advancement of the FDT standards." Peter Zornio, Emerson’s Chief Strategic Officer, said: "By joining the FDT Group, we are reiterating our industry-wide commitment to support our customers and their installed base of global standards. We would like to take a role in the stewardship of the future direction of this technology. Emerson is also committed to the FDI Project and our stewardship at the Executive level will help to unify collaboration on this important project."The FDI project to which Zornio refers was launched at the Hanover Fair in 2007 by the EDDL Corporation Team. Late in 2009, there was a further announcement, that ‘to accelerate the deployment of Field Device Integration (FDI) technology, key automation suppliers had agreed to enlarge the scope of the EDDL Cooperation Team', which was also renamed as the FDI Cooperation team. The intent was to assure a uniform device integration solution for process industries across all host systems, devices and protocols as required by end users.The FDT Group was welcomed to the group, with the primary objective of harmonizing EDDL and FDT/DTM technologies. Other associations involved included Fieldbus Foundation, HART Communications Foundation, OPC Foundation and PROFIBUS Nutzerorganisation, as well as instrument vendors such as ABB, Emerson Process Management, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens, and Yokogawa. At the time Zornio welcomed the renewed commitment to the FDI project, seeing it as an opportunity to achieve the ultimate interoperability across host systems, field devices and communication protocols.As a result of Emerson joining the FDT Group as a sponsoring member, the Board of Directors has named Mr. Steve Armstrong of Emerson to the Board of Directors and Mr. Martin Zielinski has been appointed to the Executive Committee as Vice President.The FDT Group consists of over 70 companies active in process and factory automation. Its aim is to provide an open and non-proprietary interface for the integration of field devices with engineering, automation and asset management systems. In this environment, end users, manufacturers, universities, and research organizations are working together to develop the technology, provide development tools, support and training, coordinate field trials and demonstrations, and enable product interoperability.
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