Developers of DTM’s and FDT Frame Applications were treated to a live preview of the new FDT development environment, FDTExpress, at the recent FDT Developers’ Conference in Amersfoort, Netherlands on November 18th and 19th. “We are on track for the latest release of the FDT standard to our members in February of 2010. The new FDTExpress development environment fully incorporates and self documents the updated standard so the developers can focus on getting the product to market more quickly and effectively,” states Glenn Schulz, Managing Director of the FDT Group in Brussels, Belgium.
Developers from leading device and system manufacturers in the factory and process automation fields attended the two day conference. Ralph Schmidt of M&M Software, Germany demonstrated how a basic DTM could be developed in 30 minutes using FDTExpress. Attendees shared their delight with the updates to the standard and the new FDTExpress development environment:
“The updated FDT standard will provide a very smooth integration with FDTExpress. The integrated development environment will allow us to bring our DTM’s to market more quickly,” said Ralf Schmidt of Krohne.
“Our customers are increasingly taking advantage of the DTM’s we provide with our products. We welcome the upcoming FDT release with its increased functionality, flexibility, and ease of development that it provides,” assessed Mike Devrell, of Rotork Controls PLC.
“With the new release, the FDT Group will not only define improved technology, but also will provide a new level of development support. DTM developers will love the updated FDT standard,” sights Thomas Hadlich of ifak system.
About the FDT Group AISBL™
The FDT Group AISBL is a non-profit corporation consisting of over 60 leading process and factory automation companies worldwide whose major purpose is to provide an open and non proprietary interface for the integration of field devices with engineering, automation and asset management systems. In this environment, end users, manufacturers, universities and research organizations are working together to develop the technology, provide development tools, support and training, coordinate field trials and demonstrations, and enable product interoperability.
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