Continuing their efforts to achieve a common approach for field device integration, the Field Device Integration team has successfully worked over the past 18 months to identify use cases that encompass all facets of plant operations, from start-up and commissioning to ongoing maintenance activities and plant operations. The team's efforts also included drafting an architecture concept that meets the needs of both technologies as they are migrated to a common standard.
Both the draft architecture concept and the complete inventory of use-case analysis have been completed thanks to the close co-operation among key global process control suppliers, including ABB, Emerson, Invensys, Rockwell Automation, Siemens and Yokogawa.
Future efforts will be focused on completing two remaining documents. The first is a functional specification that will detail how the benefits of EDDL, FDT and the OPC Unified Architecture will be combined. Release of this draft functional specification is planned for February 2009. Lastly, a comprehensive technical specification will be published.