March 1, 2005
The general assembly of NAMUR (the process control engineering interest group of the Chemical and Pharmaceutical industries), held in November last year, endorsed the use of PROFIBUS in the process industries.
In its ‘Fieldbus Experience Report’ NAMUR clearly identified ‘positive experiences’ in both planning and operations, citing the examples of Vitex system at DSM in Basle, where 450 HART devices work alongside 940 PROFIBUS multi-vendor field devices and the Ketek project at Sanofi-Aventis in the Hoechst Industrial Park where over 1600 PROFIBUS devices are in use.
Users confirm that a wide selection of fieldbus-capable components is now available, also that PROFIBUS represents a connectivity ‘breakthrough’ that results in reduced wiring, planning and installation costs. End users have also gained greater infrastructure flexibility. Martin Schwibach from BASF AG in Ludwigshaven stated: “PROFIBUS is ready for use!” A unique feature of PROFIBUS is its ability to serve mainstream processes and their associated discrete applications. Other process fieldbuses need to use a second fieldbus.