Boasting of Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemical Limited (MRPL), located in Mangalore, India which has been named the FieldComm Group 2018 Plant of the Year, Mr. Anupam Srivastava, Chairman of Fieldcomm Group India Society, informed Machine Maker that first time ever a process facility located in India has been awarded this prestigious award – illustrating India’s growing strength in the world market.
Headquartered in Austin, USA the FieldComm Group is leading the digital transformation of process automation, providing information models, protocols, and standards for connecting device information from instruments and sensors to automation systems and beyond.
With a mission to grow in India, FieldComm has set up an office in New Delhi. Mr. Anupam Srivastava, Regional Manager (India), FieldComm Group said “We set up in Delhi around one and a half years back and we see a lot of potential here. “Our vision is to make Field Comm India more popular, to make more members join and keep updating the plant with the latest and the greatest technologies.”
With all the hype about Industrie 4.0, IIoT and other global advanced information initiatives, it’s hardly surprising that suppliers are promoting products that highlight readiness for digitalization. Many solutions are available to take advantage of process automation field device information across the enterprise—from the plant floor to the cloud. FieldComm Group has solutions for all!
Working with 350+ members, over 1,500 registered products and tens of thousands of global installations, FieldComm Group has been helping the process industry leverage existing investments to deliver value through data management technologies that connect instrumentation information from the plant floor to the executive office
The company has a unified vision for a smarter Industry. Deployed in nearly every industrial facility in the world, the advanced technologies have provided a connected framework using intelligent field devices to reduce waste, improve safety and increase operational efficiency for over 25 years now.
FieldComm boasts of the advanced communication technologies- Field Device Integration (FDI), Foundation Fieldbus and HART. The establishment of the FieldComm Group allows developers of digital open standards to better collaborate on new and existing technologies and to increase the market share of digital field devices in the total device market.
Why FDI Matters
As the process industries continue to go through a digital transformation, IIoT and Industrie 4.0 become an inherent aspect of the modern process and user demand for integrated systems and components rise dramatically. For this “system of tomorrow” to operate reliably and effectively, users must be able to easily integrate all elements of their facilities to take advantage of the digital data that automation protocols like FOUNDATION Fieldbus and HART (including WirelessHART) provide.
“Some companies do question whether automation protocols are becoming obsolete because of the Industrial Internet of Things, but it’s actually the opposite effect. Users are not going to rip out equipment from a functioning plant that is reliable and operating under extremely high uptime demands. Process industries have very specific requirements and because of those, existing protocols are not going away. Instead, we are seeing a desire for a standardized way to integrate devices
Benefits Provided to Users
Users continue to look for efficiencies and cost savings at their plants through reduced lifecycle costs, simplified ease of use, and most importantly, open systems. FDI’s benefits are broad and applicable to various plant personnel disciplines including:
- C-Suite – Built-in data security and Cloud Access to plant performance information
- Plant Managers – Simplified system maintenance, device integration, and reduced risk associated with upgrades
- Operators – Standardized offline configuration, secure remote access
- IT – Built-in data security, upgrades and enhancements applied without system reboot, and push notification capabilities for updates
- Instrumentation Specialists – Easy device replacement, support for proprietary protocols, and anytime anywhere access to latest device files.
FieldComm Group’s mission is to develop, manage, and promote global standards for integrating digital devices to on-premise, mobile, and cloud-based systems; to provide services for standards conformance and implementation of process automation devices and systems that enable and improve reliability and multi-vendor interoperability; and to lead the development of a unified information model of process automation field devices while building upon industry investment in the HART®, FOUNDATION™ Fieldbus and FDI™ standards.
Based at Gurugram, Anupam Srivastava is working with Emerson Automation Solutions as Director- Refinery and Petrochemical Business. With a BTech degree from the University of Mysore, he has spent a decade in the industry. Mr. Srivastava feels that FieldComm is an organization which has developed a standard for the protocol and adds that Field Comm protocols are the most accepted, most used and most respected process industry protocol. Membership is open to all those who are interested in these advanced communication technologies.
