Automatic reaction

Press Articles, industry gurus such as Jim Pinto and organisations including the US Automation Research Council (ARC) agree that this is a boom time for automation.

Whether it is in the home, the car or in making goods more efficiently to compete with developing economies, it has become a case of machines v man, with cost being the ultimate determinant, rather than machines replacing man.

Much of this growth is driven by technological advances — especially now we have smart field instrumentation moving increasingly larger amounts of data around a plant — via a variety of fieldbus systems — or the world with the connectivity the web offers.

Fieldbus has long been touted as the answer to the world's communications problems, but only recently have giants such as

and

agreed to co-operate and share Foundation Fieldbus and Profibus technologies in an attempt to move away from proprietary systems.

As long ago as 1991 calls for fieldbus technology sharing and the desire for one 'standard' were loud and clear from users — and some see this as the biggest step forward since then.