Satisfied customers through integration

35 Open Inte­gra­tion part­ners gath­ered togeth­er at Endress + Hauser in Reinach, Switzer­land, to share their expe­ri­ences and thoughts for the first time. A high­light of the event was a pre­sen­ta­tion from rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the chem­i­cal and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­tries out­lin­ing how they ben­e­fit from the part­ner pro­gram dur­ing dig­i­tal­iza­tion of their process­es – and what they would like to see in the future.

The goal of the Open Inte­gra­tion pro­gram ini­ti­at­ed by Endress + Hauser can be summed up quick­ly: the sim­ple, fast and man­u­fac­tur­er-inde­pen­dent inte­gra­tion of com­po­nents and devices into var­i­ous automa­tion sys­tems. And, almost more impor­tant­ly, sat­is­fied customers.

While it sounds sim­ple in the­o­ry, when it comes to day-to-day sys­tem oper­a­tion, it’s far from that. Even the most expe­ri­enced automa­tion spe­cial­ists have great respect for mul­ti-ven­dor sys­tems. That also applies to com­plete solu­tions “from a sin­gle source.” After all, dig­i­tal com­mu­ni­ca­tions – a pre­con­di­tion for the exten­sive use of exist­ing intel­li­gence in field devices and sys­tems – places seri­ous demands on integration.

With its Open Inte­gra­tion part­ner pro­gram, Endress + Hauser is invit­ing providers of con­trol tech­nol­o­gy, field­bus infra­struc­ture, mea­sure­ment tech­nol­o­gy and actu­a­tor sys­tems to test and doc­u­ment the inter­ac­tion of their prod­ucts even more exten­sive­ly in the inter­ests of their cus­tomers. The coop­er­a­tion part­ners include Auma Riester, Bürk­ert, Fes­to, Flowserve, Hima Paul Hilde­brandt, Hon­ey­well Process Solu­tions, Mit­subishi Elec­tric, Pep­perl + Fuchs, Phoenix Con­tact, Rock­well Automa­tion, Schnei­der Elec­tric and Turck.

Open standards as a basis

The foun­da­tion of this effort is open com­mu­ni­ca­tion stan­dards (Hart, Profibus, Foun­da­tion Field­bus, EtherNet/IP or Profinet), as well as open inte­gra­tion stan­dards (FDT, EDD, FDI). With a near­ly unlim­it­ed selec­tion of options, the ref­er­ence topolo­gies rep­re­sent prac­ti­cal com­bi­na­tions suit­able for appli­ca­tions in the chem­i­cal, life sci­ences, food & bev­er­age, oil & gas, pow­er & ener­gy, pri­maries & met­al and water & waste­water industries.

The ref­er­ence topolo­gies take into account indus­try-typ­i­cal require­ments such as explo­sion pro­tec­tion, avail­abil­i­ty and redun­dan­cy. Each topol­o­gy is thor­ough­ly test­ed and doc­u­ment­ed in the lab in Reinach in con­junc­tion with the part­ners, after which the rec­om­men­da­tions are published.

Interoperability tests create added value

And how do cus­tomers ben­e­fit from the Open Inte­gra­tion part­ner pro­gram? Every prob­lem that the inte­gra­tion experts dis­cov­er pri­or to com­mis­sion­ing can be resolved at a much low­er cost com­pared to fix­ing the issue in the field at some lat­er point. Cus­tomers receive con­crete, val­i­dat­ed rec­om­men­da­tions for automat­ing their sys­tems, which go well beyond estab­lished con­for­mi­ty and inter­op­er­abil­i­ty test­ing while ensur­ing seam­less inte­gra­tion. Last but not least, they save time and money.

With devel­op­ments such as IIoT and APL, users will face new chal­lenges, plus inte­gra­tion test­ing will be giv­en added weight. This makes it even more impor­tant for the Open Inte­gra­tion part­ners to work togeth­er over the long term. The par­tic­i­pat­ing cus­tomer and provider rep­re­sen­ta­tives were in full agree­ment on this point. Cyber secu­ri­ty, in addi­tion to the issue of con­nec­tiv­i­ty, will play a key role in the future. They fur­ther­more agreed that effec­tive strate­gies need to be devel­oped to counter new entrants in the automa­tion indus­try such as IBM or Amazon.

Customer-driven developments

One thing was clear dur­ing the get-togeth­er in Reinach in ear­ly June: the process con­trol indus­try wants open, inter­op­er­a­ble sys­tems instead of pro­pri­etary solu­tions. One of the users wants uni­form, struc­tured access to sta­t­ic infor­ma­tion via QR- and RFID-sup­port­ed type plates in accor­dance with DIN 91406. Stan­dard­ized diag­nos­tics in line with NE 107 is also at the top of the wish list.

In the near term, Endress + Hauser wants to work with its part­ners to address these and oth­er open issues with the aim of uti­liz­ing Open Inte­gra­tion to offer cus­tomers even more val­ue-add dur­ing dig­i­tal­iza­tion of their process­es. The com­mon goal: sat­is­fied cus­tomers who can exten­sive­ly uti­lize the oppor­tu­ni­ties that dig­i­tal­iza­tion brings with lit­tle risk.