ISA plant wireless automation standard gets GE backing 27 May 2010

Industrial automation giant GE has joined others already driving uptake of the ISA100 industrial plant wireless communications standard.

With the news that GE is now part of the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute Governing Board, the standard will benefit from the organisation's worldwide reach and technology in industrial communications, particularly for the energy and process sectors.

"Our customers rely on GE to deliver reliable solutions for their mission-critical communication networks, and are increasingly demanding products that are interoperable for easier infrastructure deployments," explains Melanie Cook, communications general manager for GE's Digital Energy business.

"From Smart Grid modernisation to oil and gas and industrial automation applications, the ISA100 standards will help us in meeting our customers' requirements."

"The addition of GE expands coverage of industry verticals represented in the WCI and gives us another great resource for ensuring conformance, interoperability, and marketplace adoption of standards that best meet the needs of users around the world," comments Andre Ristaino, Wireless Compliance Institute managing director.

ISA100 is a family of open standards, providing proven, reliable, flexible and deterministic communications that can help streamline and optimise the integration of industrial process automation.

The ISA100.11a Industrial Wireless Networking Standard, approved in September 2009, is the first in the ISA100 family. Specifically, it is a mesh-based protocol that enables manufacturing and process plants to create, modify and optimise operations quickly and cost-effectively.

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) is a non-profit industry consortium providing plant users and developers with market awareness, technical support, and compliance for the ISA100 family of wireless standards.

Early members include Apprion, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Fuji Electric, Gastronics, GE, Honeywell, Nivis, Procter & Gamble, R3 Sensors, Shell and Yokogawa.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
ISA International
ISA100Wireless

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