IEC fieldbus (non) standard staggers on

InTech, Mar 2000 by Sheble, Nicholas

Orlando, Fla. -- There seemed to be a sense of closure when Richard Caro followed through on his threat to resign from the leadership of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) Fieldbus Committee. He said the recent passage of the final draft IEC 61158 was "not the standard for which his committee worked for 13 years to complete," and so at the ARC Advisory Group conference here last month, he said he's "outta here."

The standard has seven additional parts in parallel with the original committee product.

What in the world happened? It seemed only months ago that a legitimate standard was imminent. Lots of people and organizations are pointing fingers at one another on this failure. Nearly everyone In Tech talks to at least partially blames the IEC itself.

Former IEC Fieldbus Committee chairman and DuPont engineer Cullen Langford derided the IEC: "The worst of all is the deceit, manipulation, misinformation, ignorance, and apathy which led to this 'standard.' The IEC and certain members of the IEC who treat the IEC as their own private standards-making body have poorly served the users. This must end If this whole mess were played out in the U.S., someone would be in court right now."

Artemis Network:' Eric Byres concurred: "Where is IEC's common interface layer to deal with this mess? This standard does nothing to address this. It is a piece of sloppy political work."

Things started to slip out of control this past summer in Ottawa. At that meeting, the sides reached an agreement that would make Profibus technology a part of the IEC technical standard. ISA SP50 is the basis for that standard-the root of Foundation fieldbus technology.

Fieldbus Foundation (FF) director John Pittman said the IEC directive, which made adding the Profibus protocol possible, was a compromise attempt between the two long-- time adversaries. Said Pittman, "It got out of control, and the process was hijacked."

Pittman cited the IEC's loosely worded rendering of the agreement as a monkey wrench in the works. Obscure protocols such as P-Net ("Its market is one country: Denmark!" commented Pittman) were suddenly nominated, deemed eligible, and added to the mishmash.

Profibus International's chairman Klaus-- Peter Lindner agreed with Caro and the others that it will be impossible to merge the 8-headed standard into one interoperable entity. He also lamented the FF/Profibus compromise breakdown. "Bob Crowder of Ship Star put in his own protocol, SwiftNet. Now it's an international standard. I think IEC 61158 was voted in because the national committees just wanted to get this whole thing behind them. Now the market will decide. It's 14 years old-the world has changed anyway. I agree with Dick Caro: It's time to move on."