Success story: Fieldbus technology has changed industry in a sustainable way

Integration of field devices in automation systems and ensuring safety, reliability and quality standards as head of the Device Integration Center

Company:
ABB Automation GmbH, later ABB India Ltd.

Sector:
Industry – Product Development

Turnover/budget:
> 1 million euros

Employees:
> 10

Situation in the company:

Fieldbus technology has further decentralized computer-aided automation. This resulted in interfaces with a large number of field equipment manufacturers. This presented new challenges not only for the company, which has previously providing a closed system, but also for the plant operator, who wanted to continue to have a single point of contact.

Own role:
Head of the Device Integration Center

Verantwortungsbereich:
Global

Mandate:
Integrating field devices into automation systems and ensure that these now open systems meet the same reliability and quality standards of the previously closed systems

Measures:

Developing a software architecture for the integration of field devices of any manufacturer in numerous automation systems
Standardization of this architecture in cooperation with international system and field equipment manufacturers (FDT Panel)
Setting up the Device Integration Center in India to ensure reliability and quality standards based on standardized testing methods and new test automation processes

Results:

Since the end of the mandate, the center in India supports, in close cooperation with the renowned equipment manufacturers, the fieldbus applications of all business units of ABB
Exponential growth of supported field devices due to new field devices while continuous updating existing devices (life-cycle management)
Today, fully automated tests to be able to retest new variants of existing field devices in a timely manner