38 leading companies participate in General Assembly; 37 individuals participate in User Forum
The recently formalized FDT Group held its first General Assembly in Amsterdam, The Netherlands on October 11, 2005. This was followed by the first FDT Group User Forum on October 12th. Thirty-eight leading companies participated in the General Assembly, including ABB, Endress+Hauser, Honeywell Process Solutions, Invensys, Metso Automation, Omron, Pepperl + Fuchs, Schneider Electric, and Yokogawa.
Thirty-seven people from 14 different end-user companies and engineering organizations participated in the successful User Forum, which provided a dynamic interactive venue for sharing ideas and information and proved to be extremely beneficial for both users and FDT Group committee members. Following on this success, it was decided to schedule additional User Forums for next year.
The mission of the FDT Group is to:
- Achieve international standardization status for FDT specification
- Promote, enhance and support the usage of FDT open interoperability technology in process automation, factory automation, and hybrid applications
- Preserve the technology investments already made by end users, device manufacturers, and control systems
- Ensure stability, interoperability and compatibility of FDT-based products
- Continuously maintain the FDT standard consistent with leading-edge technology
- Ensure that all FDT products are certified
FDT Group member companies will be demonstrating the latest FDT-enabled interoperability solutions for FOUNDATION fieldbus, HART, PROFIBUS, DeviceNet and other devices and control systems at ISA EXPO 2005 Booth #1328 in Chicago, October 25-27, 2005.
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