Webcast on Designing Your First Fieldbus Installation Now Archived Online

Our first webcast with Control Engineering on designing your first fieldbus installation is now archived and available for download here.  (You have to register first, but it's fairly painless.)  The design phase has a huge impact on the effectiveness of the fieldbus installation throughout its lifecycle, where the real cost benefits of the technology are achieved.  Many first timers can fall into the trap of thinking about things in terms of 4-20 mA technology, and just because you have an engineering partner that may have done fieldbus installations in the past is no guarantee of success.  Check out our webcast for tips on how to avoid these and other common mistakes and get the most out of your fieldbus installation. 

Next month Mike Miller from Duke Energy and yours truly will have another webcast on implementing FOUNDATION fieldbus in a modernization or migration scenario.  Many end users are incorporating FOUNDATION technology into their modernization strategies.  We will post details as they become available. 

Control Engineering Webcast: Designing Your First Fieldbus Installation

FOUNDATION Developer Training Planned for September 20-23 in Frankfurt, Germany

The Fieldbus Foundation will conduct training classes for FOUNDATION fieldbus product developers from September 20-23 in Frankfurt, Germany. The classes will be held at the facility of BIS Prozesstechnik GmbH, located in the Industriepark Höchst next to the Frankfurt International Airport.

BIS Prozesstechnik GmbH has been a FOUNDATION Fieldbus Center of Excellence since May 2004.

Two comprehensive developer courses will be offered in Frankfurt: "Introduction to FOUNDATION Fieldbus" on Tuesday, September 20th; and the "Advanced Principles of FOUNDATION Fieldbus" on September 21-23rd. These courses designed for beginning and advanced fieldbus development professionals, respectively.

The vendor-neutral "Introduction to FOUNDATION Fieldbus" course is intended for developers, marketing professionals, applications engineers, system integrators and others interested in obtaining a fundamental knowledge of FOUNDATION technology. Students will become familiar with the basic concepts and new terminology related to the FOUNDATION integrated architecture. They will understand the key strategies for wiring and installation of a fieldbus network. Special emphasis will be placed on design issues such as power requirements, device types and topologies.

The "Introduction to FOUNDATION Fieldbus" course assumes little or no prior knowledge of FOUNDATION technology, but students should already be familiar with process control and existing 4-20 mA technology found in present-day installations.

The vendor-neutral "Advanced Principles of FOUNDATION Fieldbus" course is intended for manufacturers and developers of fieldbus hardware and software. The course is best suited for development engineers, test engineers, and all who wish to understand the detailed inner workings of a fieldbus device. The "Introduction to FOUNDATION Fieldbus" course is a prerequisite for this advanced class. Students should be familiar with the basic terminology of FOUNDATION technology, and have a general understanding of its communications protocol, function block execution, linkages and DDs.

Register for Developer Training Today
For more information, please view the Developer Training page from the foundation's website. To register for the upcoming Fieldbus Foundation training courses at BIS Prozesstechnik GmbH, please download the training registration form and submit by email to training@fieldbus.org or fax to 1.512.794.8893. Registration deadline is August 30, 2011. Registrations submitted past deadline may be accepted on an individual basis.

Check out Our Webinar With Control Engineering on Designing Your First Fieldbus Installation

There are many pitfalls to avoid when designing and installing your first fieldbus project.  On Thursday,  August 25, 2 PM Eastern Time, Fieldbus Foundation and Control Engineering will be hosting a webinar on how to design and install your first project successfully.  Joining myself and Peter Welander of Control Engineering will be Dave Lancaster.  Formerly of Bechtel, Dave is now one of our leading FOUNDATION Fieldbus trainers at Trine University in Indianapolis and is an active part of our Americas end user and sales force training seminars.  We'll talk about the human factors as well as segment design, training resources, and how FOUNDATION Fieldbus changes device commissioning. 

Control Engineering and Fieldbus Foundation Webinar on Designing and Implementing Your First Fieldbus Installation

EDDL and Device Revision Management

There is an interesting white paper available from EDDL.org (The Electronic Device Description web site) on device revision management.  Version management was traditionally a challenge in the early days of digital instrumentation, but the latest version of EDDL makes it much easier to manage different versions of devices.  The white paper also provides a good overall tutorial of EDDL.

Device Revision and Lifecycle Management Guide: How to keep systems up to date and compatible with new devices using EDDL

Canadian End User and Sales Force Training Seminars Coming Soon

Just a reminder that our continuing series of end user seminars are going to continue soon, this time in Calgary and Fort MacMurray Canada.  The Calgary seminar is scheduled for September 20th.  We will do a separate sales force training seminar on September 21st in Calgary, then it's off to Fort MacMurray for another end user seminar on the 22nd.  You can get more information on our web site. 

Electronic Registration for Calgary End User Seminar

Electronic Registration for Calgary Sales Force Training Seminar

Electronic Registration for Fort MacMurray End User Seminar

ControlGlobal Article by John Rezabek on "The Death of the Loop Drawing"

Good article from Chairman of our End User Advisory Council and contributing editor to ControlGlobal John Rezabek on the ambiguous future of the loop drawing.  In these days of fieldbus and wireless technology, do old school paper loop drawings have a future?

Death of the Loop Drawing

Mangalore India Refinery Installs FOUNDATION Actuators from AUMA

India continues to be a global leader in the installation and use of FOUNDATION Fieldbus technology.  This recent story from EngineerLive shows how one refinery in Mangalore installed FOUNDATION Fieldbus electric actuators from AUMA to achieve more flexible and reliable production. 

Flexible Actuator Functionality Aids Refinery Automation