We continue update the PERA website to incorporate new technical developments
and feedback from our readers. The following provides links to "new content"
that may have changed since your last visit.
A description of the new ISA 108 "Intelligent Device Management"
standard. This ISA Standard (see Enterprise Integration Standards from ISA
standards group) defines requirements for engineering and maintaining intelligent
plant instrumentation that can communicate and/or be "software configured".
These devices bring great advantages by allowing the "health" of
the device to be monitored but have also caused many problems because of inadvertent
or inadequately managed changes.
A description of the ISA 84 standard (see Enterprise Integration Standards
from ISA standards group) that defines requirements for SIS (Safety Instrumented
Systems) where control systems are used to protect the process facility from
serious failures that cannot be eliminated by redesign of the process equipment.
This adds special requirements to the reliability and maintenance requirements
of such SIS/SIL systems that must be dealt with in a a formal manner.
FDI comprises a set of developing standards for communication with Intelligent
Devices (see ISA 108) including detailed protocols for communication and configuration
of such devices (see the Enterprise Integration Standards page under Fiatech).
The Fiatech organization has assumed control of the FDI standard and are coordinating
implementation and testing by their members including most of the world's
largest instrumentation manufacturers.
A set of useful UML Tools (See UML Modelling Language link under OMG Object Management Group). Thank you Stephanie at "WhoIsHostingThisMail.com.
