Bridging the Gap between HART Devices and the Industrial Internet of Things

Moore Industries. Over the last couple of decades, the introduction of industrial Ethernet and wireless networks in process manufacturing plants and automation facilities has meant that data exchange within a facility and even throughout global corporate networks is becoming commonplace. The separate information hierarchy levels, outlined in the ISA 95 model, related to process data exchange within a manufacturing facility, have started to coalesce. In prior years, data and information that needed to be exchanged between the lowest plant floor levels 0-2 and the upper ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) level 4 required expensive MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) products or custom coding; and oftentimes both. This free flow of information has introduced a new set of ubiquitous terms, standards and phrases such as IIoT, Smart Factory and Cloud Automation. This white paper will outline how the flow of process and diagnostics data from smart HART digital field instruments can now be shared with mid and higher-level control.