Wireless will advance but never rule

There was a time when pneumatics technicians said, “I’ll never allow those 4-20 mA to run in this plant.”
There was a time when analog instrumentation people said, “We’ll never run that digital stuff on these wires.”
Now, and despite the promise from the ISA100 developers the new wireless standard will ensure that automation wireless signaling will be more reliable than hardwire digital transmission, the same refrain echoes.
There’s still distrust for the technology.
“We won’t be using wireless for critical control applications at our plant anytime soon,” said Jim Albert, a process engineer at Allston, Mass-based Genzyme Corp. “We’re just not comfortable with that.”
Albert had just received a wireless innovator’s award for his wireless application at the Emerson Global Users Exchange at National Harbor, Md. when he made this comment to the trade press.
His award was for the wireless monitoring of the temperature in vessels containing nitrogen. Genzyme is a biotechnology company that produces enzymes for treating rare diseases. Their customers and patients reside in 90 countries around the world.
Indeed, John Berra, chairman of Emerson Process Management, touted the coming of wireless during his keynote speech earlier this week. WirelessHART is probably the crown jewel of his legacy.
Berra predicts wireless will handle 20% of the measurements in plants and factories some day. “It’s a huge market,” he said.
In fact, there are analyst predictions that say the number is double that – 40%.
– Nicholas Sheble