You may have seen the recent news of the HART Communications Foundation and the Fieldbus Foundation merging to form the FieldComm Group. Ted Masters, President and CEO of the FieldComm Group noted:
…the creation of FieldComm Group is an unprecedented opportunity to build upon existing technologies and develop a single future vision toward harmonization of standards for the process automation industry worldwide.
We’ve highlighted in numerous digital bus-related posts how these digital communications protocols are being used to improve control performance, perform predictive maintenance activities, and provide richer information to optimize and operate plants more reliably.
For new members to the process automation community, the HART protocol:
…(Highway Addressable Remote Transducer Protocol) is an early implementation of Fieldbus, a digital industrial automation protocol. Its most notable advantage is that it can communicate over legacy 4-20 mA analog instrumentation wiring, sharing the pair of wires used by the older system. According to Emerson,[1] due to the huge installed base of 4-20 mA systems throughout the world, the HART Protocol is one of the most popular industrial protocols today.
I mention this because I saw a post this morning in the Wireless track of the Emerson Exchange 365 community by Emerson’s Deanna Johnson. In the discussion thread, Looking for nominees for the 13th Annual HART Plant of the Year Award, Deanna highlights the opportunity to be recognized for innovative use and results achieved with the HART protocol:
Is your plant or mill using HART Communication in an innovative way? Or do know someone at a plant who has?Deanna Johnson
Wireless Marketing Manager, Global SolutionsThe HART Communication Foundation wants to recognize innovative people who use HART Technology, for the 13th Annual HART Plant of the Year Award.
The HART Plant of the Year is the only international award presented to end user companies in the process automation industry to recognize the exceptional application of HART Communication technology – wired or wireless! The president of the Foundation presents the award plaque at the plant site, explains the significance of the HART application, and acknowledges all members of the team (who each receive an individual award certificate).
Selection is based on the use of HART not on the size or complexity of the installation. HART is seeking a plant that has taken the capabilities of HART instruments beyond configuration and calibration or a plant that is using real-time diagnostics and process variables in HART-enabled devices integrated with control, information, asset management, or safety systems.
Nominations are encouraged from all world areas. End-users can nominate themselves or sales people working with end-users can also submit the nomination.
Click for Nomination Form: https://en.hartcomm.org/hcf/userrec/poy/plantofyear_nomination.html
Deadline for Nominations is October 1, 2014
If you or someone you know is doing innovative things and delivering results through the use of this digital communications technology, get that nomination in the remaining days of September!
