New Zealand’s process control industry has tapped into the international Foundation Fieldbus support infrastructure with the formation late last year of an end user council.

The council was formed during the Control ‘98 expo in Auckland in November, and was attended by Foundation Fieldbus president John Pittman. Two co-chairmen have been elected. They are: Dominic Hollewand (Watercare Services’ control systems planner) and Jim Neville (managing director of Custom Controls).

Similar councils already exist in Europe, the US, Japan and Singapore. Two were established in Australia (in Sydney and Perth) soon after New Zealand’s, and Pittman anticipates Brazil and China will soon have one each.

He says end user councils provide a number of key benefits to local industry. They include access to the latest information, and the opportunity to participate in and influence the development of specifications.

"In addition to its web site," says Pittman, "Foundation Fieldbus has a bulletin board service accessible over the web, and it’s available only to members and end user councils. Much of the information we distribute is for broad, general consumption. But there’s often preliminary material we want to make available to end users which we don’t want in the public domain." He says such information typically concerns evolving developments.

The Foundation also plans to make a portion of its web site password-protected for end user council members, allowing them to share information about installations and start up procedures. "We often arrange ad hoc chat groups, hosted by installation experts on specific days at specific times," says Pittman. "Members are able to dial up and participate in the sessions, asking questions and receiving answers in real time."

Fieldbus Speed

Pittman says one of the most significant developments in the Foundation Fieldbus arena is a fast-track investigation into the possibility of ‘over-laying’ an Ethernet protocol over a conventional fieldbus infrastructure. If successful, such a marriage would result in a quantum leap in speed. Ethernet technology operates at 100 megabits (compared with around 12 megabits of conventional fieldbus technology).

The Foundation has thrown its full support behind the project. At the scoping of the plan in March last year, the Foundation’s Board drew up a schedule which called for a first draft of the specification by October, and a ‘proof of concept’ by December. Both have been achieved.

To meet those deadlines, the Board persuaded 19 international companies to temporarily part with 27 leading process control engineers to work on the project. All have been seconded to the project’s headquarters in Foxboro, Massachusetts.

What are the implications if it succeeds? "Apart from the convenience of accessing fieldbus technology from a desktop PC," says Pittman, "the Ethernet breakthrough would transform fieldbus technology and the international process control industry. " He says the experts at Foxboro believe if the 100 megabit threshold can be breached, the one gigabit threshold would not be far away.

Appeal

Meanwhile, the international fieldbus community awaits with bated breath the outcome of two appeals against the failed IEC ballot late last year on a proposed new global standard for fieldbus technology (IEC 61158).

Adoption of the standard rested on two criteria: 66% of ‘participating’ IEC members had to vote ‘yes’ (this condition was met), but no more than 25% of participating and observing members should vote ‘no’. That requirement was not met.

But two appeals have been submitted to the IEC. The first (by the organisation’s technical committee) questions the ‘technical’ reasons posted by some of the ‘nay’ voters for their decision. The committee says six voters provided inadequate rationales.

The IEC has asked all national committees (including NZ) to assess the technical committee’s arguments, and vote on the validity of the six dissenters’ objections. If four of the votes are found to be invalid and rejected, the 25% criteria will have been met and IEC 61158 will become a global standard.

A second appeal (by the UK) concerns ‘discipline’. In essence, it points out that four of the ‘no’ voters have a history of supporting the specification (over its 12-year evolution), yet inexplicably voted against it. The UK has asked the IEC’s Committee of Action to investigate the decisions.

Results of the appeals are expected in February.