26 July 2007

Tackling automation standards

By Jim Pinto

Standards are intrinsically difficult to implement and adopt. Everyone agrees you need them; but then, everyone has conflicting requirements.

End users want standards because, more than anything else, they provide interoperability and reduce dependence on any specific supplier. For this very reason, suppliers only pretend to support standards when in reality the ones they really promote are those that give them a distinct proprietary advantage.

Conflicting standards have bad effects for everyone. Customers get confused and postpone purchases to see how the market settles. In addition, suppliers limit development investments in products that may end up on the losing side of the conflict. Therefore, growth becomes inhibited, and the market becomes fragmented.

The technology treadmill compounds this confusion. As soon as any standard demonstrates acceptable performance, new technology arrives that changes the game. Adoption does not necessarily signify technical superiority. Indeed, widely adopted standards most often do not offer the best performance but only an acceptable compromise.

Industrial automation is a specialty niche, complicated by several conflicting issues. Performance and price limitations, plus technical confusion, limit spread beyond narrow applications environments. For example, for industrial networking there are several standards—the international “fieldbus” committee actually approved several different standards, some of them directly competitive. Clearly, the decision to approve several standards was made primarily to put an end to the conflict and allow the market to decide which standards achieved the broadest adoption.

End users cannot drive standards; there are few users big enough to set standards independently and cooperation through user-committees merely results in analysis paralysis. Vendor involvement compounds the confusion because they simply promote their own preferences.

Suppliers cannot openly promote standards where they have a clear edge because that inhibits adoption by competitive suppliers. Therefore, major suppliers entice others to adopt their technology through promoting “open standards associations.” They “donate” sufficient information for others to develop a broad range of products, but maintain their advantage through ownership of key intellectual properties (such as ASICS and embedded software).

The role of a standards coordinator is best served by a neutral third-party organization that can mediate effectively and is fair to all. For industrial automation, the best choice is ISA, which is recognized globally as a standards writing organization. It has developed consensus standards for automation, security, safety, batch control, control valves, fieldbus, environmental conditions, measurement, and symbols. Accredited by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), ISA has published more than 135 standards, recommended practices, and technical reports. Its Standards and Practices involvement is one of the organization’s major services to the automation industry.

ISA standards development processes are less about policing and more about finding ways to ensure that committees have a good balance of suppliers, end users, and other industry participants. This results in standards that do not favor one industry segment or type of knowledge, but are helpful to the industry as a whole.

It is important standards are developed quickly to benefit the industry before the technology becomes obsolete.

Development and publication of Standards and Practices is one of ISA’s most important and beneficial services to its members, and to the automation business.

Related links:

• ISA Announces Creation of Automation Standards Compliance Institute:
  http://tinyurl.com/36qn4s
• The dichotomy of open standards:
  http://tinyurl.com/2sy8qp
• Pinto Poem – Open SaysaMe, Closed SaysaYou!
  http://jimpinto.com/writings/saysame.html

Behind the byline

Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and founder of Action Instruments. You can e-mail him at jim@jimpinto.com or view his writings at www.JimPinto.com. Read the Table of Contents of his book, Pinto’s Points, at www.jimpinto.com/writings/points.html.