then connects out to human-machine interface/supervisory control and data acquisition (HMI/SCADA) and advanced SCADA systems. This level of networking brings the device data to the operators or to manufacturing execution systems, supply chain execution and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, and even Web applications.

The advantage of the HMI interface is that it allows operators to control devices digitally and take diagnostic information off the devices in real time. “I visited a brewery where they were replacing their bottling and palletizing equipment with fieldbus,” says Tim Black, device integration manager at automation provider Wonderware, an Invensys company based in Lake Forest, Calif. “They used HMI as the front end of the fieldbus. The HMI is the perfect front end for fieldbus because it can represent the diagnostics. You get the information and display it to the end-user.”

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