Machine control often involves a Tower of Babel of programming languages, but suppliers are responding to manufacturers' demands for a common look and feel.
Standardization is a code word for reduced revenues in some quarters, and end users who champion standardization have learned to approach the topic gingerly. The phrase "same look and feel" serves as a proxy for the openness manufacturers want in controls design. While that stops short of the software compatability end users crave, it suggests a degree of standardization to wring inefficiencies out of automation projects.
"On the process side, we had engineers telling us that imposing standards was taking away their creativity, and that was a good thing," observes David A. Chappell, batch technology manager for Procter & Gamble in Cincinnati who champions standards efforts for batch processes. A member of WBF (World Batch Forum), the group that is developing the S88 framework for batch control, Chappell says, "Many of those engineers moved over to the machine side, where an artistic programming environment still exists." Unfortunately, end users like P&G pay for their artistic expression with higher integration costs and awkward reprogramming challenges that don't add value. That's why WBF is cooperating with the OMAC Packaging Work Group to develop common standards for both discreet and batch processes.