The incentives to improve, automate and extend the enterprise apply to everything from operations to maintenance and are rooted in virtually every aspect of the manufacturing process. For many plants, the low-hanging fruit for automation initiatives has long since been harvested, leaving the difficult or costly projects that lack financial justification or sufficient operational benefit to move forward. The emergence of industrial wireless technologies and standards radically changes the economics of these operational investments creating new opportunities to improve the efficiency, safety, security, and productivity of your plant.

One doesn't have to look far to see that major automation vendors are increasingly integrating wireless technologies into their products to sow the seeds for this next generation of plant automation. Going wireless is seen as a way to cost effectively add more monitoring capabilities and points of measurement, enhance workforce mobility, improve safety and security, and drive more efficient utilization of assets, raw materials and energy.

However, for wireless to work in these often difficult and changing environments the technologies must deliver reliable performance, ease of use and cost effectiveness. Although wireless is heralded as the next big thing in automation, it certainly isn’t new. The move to use wireless technology