FDT Group, Fieldbus Foundation, Hart Communication Foundation, Profibus & Profinet Int'l and OPC Foundation agreed to form a joint company to manage efforts on a single, common solution for field device integration (FDI). The new company, called FDI Cooperation, was made formal at a signing in Karlsruhe, Germany, in September.
The company’s board of managers is made up of representatives from each organization, as well as managers of global automation suppliers, including ABB, Emerson, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell, Invensys, Siemens and Yokogawa. Hans-Georg Kumpfmüller, president of Siemens Process Automation, will serve as chairman of the board; and Achim Laubenstein of ABB Automation has been nominated as executive director.
The five organizations initially approved the FDI project in March 2007, aimed at harmonizing the FDT and EDDL device integration technologies. The purpose of the FDI Cooperation is to complete the standardization of FDI under the International Electrical Commission (IEC); manage the FDI specification; and finalize the FDI toolkits for system and device manufacturers.
