Report from the 2013 General Assembly in Shanghai

I am pleased to say that the Fieldbus Foundation conducted a very successful (and crowded) General Assembly last week at the Portman Ritz Carlton Hotel in Shanghai.  The General Assembly is our biggest event all year and includes our annual End User Advisory Council meeting, board meeting, and annual business meeting, but the real event is the end user seminar, which this year attracted over 250 attendees, most of them end users.  Attendees were treated to a wide variety of presentations from some of the real automation visionaries in China.  The Chinese market was really the springboard for FOUNDATION technology when fieldbus products and systems were first introduced, and remains a key market for us today.  Many of the world's largest fieldbus installations are in China and include famous sites such as CSPC Nanhai, Shanghai SECCO, and numerous projects conducted by Sinopec Engineering.

Fieldbus Foundation President Rich Timoney opened the event by presenting a plaque to one of the distinguished fellows of the world of FOUNDATION fieldbus, Mr. Huang BuYu, Deputy Chief Engineer of Sinopec Engineering, who was a key early advocate of fieldbus technology in China.  You can access a very good presentation by Mr. Huang from our previous general assembly in Shanghai back in 2006 here.

Huang BuYu of Sinopec Engineering was a
Key Early Advocate of Fieldbus in China

Fieldbus Foundation Chairman Dr. Gunther Kegel then introduced Sinopec Engineering Vice Chief Engineer Lin Rong, who discussed Sinopec Engineering's ongoing experience with FOUNDATION fieldbus throughout the plant lifecycle.  An English version of Mr. Lin's presentation, as well as all the other presentations, will be posted to our SlideShare account by early next week.

Keynote Speaker Lin Rong of Sinopec Engineering

You can get the full agenda for the End User Seminar here.

Other presentations during the day included:


Mr. Wei Hua
Equipment Technology Management
China Blue Chemical Ltd, CNOOC
Installation and Commissioning


Mr. Liu Zhiqiang
Guixi Smelt
Project Best Practices


Mr. Huang Weibo
Sinopec Beijing Yanshan
The Importance of Training


Mr. Bai Guo Hua
Director of Equipment Department
Laizhou Power Plant
Fieldbus in the Power Industry


Mr. Ye YingMin
Manager of Maintenance Dept.
Shanghai SECCO
Fieldbus Diagnostics and Maintenance

We were truly fortunate to get so many prominent local end users and we will be doing a brief feature on each one of these presentations over the next few weeks.  I also gave a presentation on the current market outlook for fieldbus products and services, as well as an update on FOUNDATION for ROM technology.  Dave Glanzer, Director of Technology Development for the Fieldbus Foundation, also gave a presentation on our overall technology roadmap.

Over 250 Attendees Converged to hear about the Latest in Fieldbus

I want to extend a big thank you to our sponsors as well.  This event would not have been possible without their help.  I think I can truly say that we had the largest display of FOUNDATION products and host systems under one roof.  Our sponsors this year included:

Look for more coverage of GA presentations and topics in the coming weeks!