explains Dave Kaufman, business development director for Honeywell Process Solutions and a member of the ISA100.11a working group.

The ISA100 project’s complexity is heightened by its inclusion of end-users, though many feel that also makes the standard stronger. “We feel that because users are involved, the outcome will be more robust and sustainable,” says Kaufman. “The only way to hit the sweet spot for an emerging technology in an emerging market is iteratively, and end-users offer us one of the better ways to connect the dots. We’re convinced that when a standard is developed with users and for users, then users are almost certainly going to buy into it.”

The Procter & Gamble Co.’s Jim Reizner, in Cincinnati, is one of those end-users. “We gain several advantages from participation,” says Reizner, who is section head, corporate engineering for P&G and co-chair of the ISA100 End-User Working Group. “First, it ensures that the standards will be developed to meet our specific needs and challenges, something that may or may not happen without our involvement. Second, because we’re part of the process, we gain first-hand knowledge of what the standards do and do not cover—the strengths and holes. That will help us leverage ISA100-compliant wireless technologies as they become available. Third, and perhaps most important to me personally, I have access to technology leaders in other end-user companies. I work day-to-day with people from ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron, BP, Intel and many other companies. We share learnings with one another in an open and informal way that would not occur if not for our involvement with standards development.”

There is a final benefit. “The process gives us a unique opportunity to get together to discuss our needs and present them in unison to the manufacturers. Manufacturers listen a lot more to a group of end-users than they do to a single end-user.” He adds: “The thing that has amazed me through this process is how similar the end-users needs and desires are—regardless of the industry we serve. Even though we focus on consumer goods, Procter & Gamble’s manufacturing needs are more like those of the oil companies, electric power companies, and the computer chip makers than I would ever have imagined.”

“We’re building on what we’ve learned in the wired world—building on all the good stuff about connecting and taking away the bad,” says Kauffman. He has no doubt of the import of ISA100. “It’s the next 4-20 [milliAmp standard],” he says, “and it will be the infrastructure for a revolution in industrial automation.”