In June last year, the cooperation between NAMUR, ZVEI and PI (PROFIBUS & PROFINET International) was officially sealed. The goal is to prepare and deliver NOA (Namur Open Architecture), an open standard for efficient and secure vertical communication at process automation production plants. The task here is to define NOA as a standardized channel for the feedback-free transmission of required digital data to a parallel second channel from the field for the purposes of monitoring, process optimization and predictive maintenance. The work in the cooperation has now begun and is bearing its first fruits.
Utilizing previously developed use cases as a basis, and with the support of available test plants for determining the degree of interoperability of NOA implementations in different applications, valuable experience revealing achievable potential savings—which in turn can point out the possibility of cost reductions—is being gained. This is all taking place with the aim of achieving a long-lasting interoperable standard. To this end, the cooperating partners have already started agreements within the framework of the established NOA Steering Committee.
At a joint workshop attended by experts of the cooperating partners, the members of the Steering Committee have evaluated the use cases described in the NAMUR recommendations for relevance and urgency. Crucial topics have been defined, and the priorities and necessary steps for the work to come have been specified.
In this context, the Steering Committee decided to optimize the practical suitability of provisions with the aid of a pilot plant as soon as work on the specification begins. The implementations currently available are based on the requirements and implementation hints specified in the NAMUR recommendations, making them an excellent foundation for further work. They also show that the technology is available and can now be scaled in a large number of plants so urgently needed savings potential can also be realized in short order. The pilot plant provides practical infrastructure similar to a Plug Fest into which additional new implementations are to be integrated on a continual basis. Both this approach and plant testing under real-world conditions have already proven themselves in the cooperative efforts of NAMUR and ZVEI over the past few years.
Utilizing findings from the pilot applications, test scenarios are being created which in turn substantially contribute to the evaluation of specification document quality and the quality of implementation in interoperable NOA products—and they do it early in the process of creating the specification. These test scenarios then form the basis for the establishment of certification testing and provision of the required tools in the following step.
The Steering Committee will establish Joint Working Groups to carry out specification work, define quality assurance measures and implement marketing projects.