I wish you, your colleagues, and your family the best of health, happiness, and prosperity in 2021.
It is energizing to see the world-wide enthusiasm for the new FDT 3.0 standard. We have large users looking to immediately place an instance in their facilities and we have vendors that are new to the FDT standard that are looking to incorporate FDT technology within their product line-up. Our virtual developer forum at the end of last year drew more attendees than we have had in recent memory. All this underscores that the new FDT standard hits the market requirements as the data-centric platform independent solution empowering standardized Web Services for remote and mobile access and native OPC UA integration allowing IT/OT data-flow enterprise wide. We continue to host virtual introductions to the new FDT standard so if you would like to schedule one for you and your staff, we are happy to help.
As the chairman of the FDT Board, I see a healthy metric for the FDT Group reflected in the new members that have joined our efforts. As a membership lead organization, we welcome the active participation and leadership of our newest members – Auburn FilterSense, Fuji Electric Company and GP Systems GmbH. We could not be happier to have them onboard. I look forward to learning of their success stories with the FDT standard.
I would like to take a moment to ask your company, whether a user or a vendor, to join the FDT Group membership in support of the activities of our non-profit organization. We host a rich, collaborative environment of the best business, marketing and technical minds coming together to engineer and advance the most popular device integration and information standard in the industry. Our organization is run largely by volunteer resources that lead and drive the various activities of the FDT Group. It makes for a very inspiring and synergetic working environment. To learn more about joining as a member in support of the FDT mission, please visit https://www.fdtgroup.org/membership.
One new member led working group initiative is to enhance the capabilities of the new FDT Web Services interface with support for special purpose Apps. These new FDT Apps that will be writeable by end-users or vendors to leverage the information available through the FDT Server will drive unique business outcomes and workflows. If you would like to be a part of this defining phase, please let us know by reaching out to [email protected]. The work is about to kick off at the committee level through virtual meetings. These are exciting times as we continue to drive innovation with customizable add-on new tech solutions leveraging FDT’s 3.0 data-centric server platform for the new era of manufacturing and process systems. I look forward to reading their recommendations.
Lee Lane, Chairman of the FDT Board of Directors