New member for wireless body

Flowserve Corporation has joined the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (ISA100 WCI) as a supplier member. 

“With ISA100-based products in the works at Flowserve, joining the ISA100 WCI gives us access to a technical and user ecosystem that enables us to accelerate our ISA100.11a product offerings,” said Scott Wilkerson, senior product portfolio manager of Flowserve Corporation. “Our solutions help customers move, control and protect the flow of materials in critical industries worldwide. We look forward to offering our customers products based on the global ISA100.11a wireless standard.”

“As one of the world’s largest manufacturers of pumps, valves, seals and other components, Flowserve brings another product category into the ISA100.11a-based offerings,” said Andre Ristaino, managing director of ISA100 WCI. “Flowserve’s applications are supported across key industrial sectors, including oil, gas, chemical, power generation and water resources. We look forward to working with Flowserve.”

Recently, ISA100 WCI announced the success of its Wireless Plugfest—a structured program conducted periodically to confirm interoperability of wireless products certified to the open ISA100.11a standard. Hosted by National Technical Services(NTS), a US based independent third-party engineering, testing and certification company, test engineers successfully demonstrated interoperability of ISA100.11a-based field devices, provisioning devices, and gateways—confirming the technical capability, openness, ease of use and interoperability capabilities demanded by ISA100.11a users.

Wireless standard interoperility confirmed

Successful ‘Wireless Plugfest’ confirms the interoperability of ISA100.11a registered devices
Honeywell, Yokogawa, Nivis, GE, Yamatake, Fuji Electric and R3 Sensors Participate in Structured Interoperability Testing Held at NTS Lab

Plugfest Webinar
A free WCI webinar showcasing the results of the WCI December 2010 Wireless Plugfest is scheduled. The webinar will describe the objectives of the Plugfest, how it was structured, the results and, lessons learned. Presenters include Jay Werb, WCI Technical Director and Dr. Penny Chen, Principal Systems Architect at Yokogawa Corporation. It will be presented on January 18, 2011 and January 19, 2011.

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) announced the success of its recently held 'Wireless Plugfest.' This is a structured WCI member program conducted periodically to validate interoperability of wireless products compliant with the ISA100.11a standard. The event was held in December 2010, at National Technical Systems (NTS) labs in Los Angeles, CA.  NTS is an independent third-party engineering, testing and certification company.

The WCI Technical Steering Committee designed and planned this series of test scenarios to confirm interoperability characteristics in four functional categories; Provisioning, Networking, Application Configuration, and Data Publishing.

“We were thrilled with the outcome of the December 2010 WCI Wireless Plugfest and will expand the Plugfest program on an ongoing basis.  Our objective is to improve the user experience with ISA100 based products and maintain confidence in our declaration of assured interoperability,” said Andre Ristaino, managing director of WCI.

Test engineers successfully demonstrated interoperability of ISA100.11a based manufacturer field devices, provisioning devices, and gateways.  The test included registered devices submitted by suppliers including the Honeywell High Level Analog Input (HLAI) device, pressure and temperature devices and, Yokogowa pressure transmitter and temperature transmitters. Using a structured plan for assessing multiple combinations of network configurations, devices from participating suppliers were joined to gateways from Honeywell, Yokogawa and Nivis, Inc., and then configured to publish data through those gateways.

“We were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the WCI technical documentation and the interoperability of the ISA100.11a devices and profiles,” said Osman Sakr, CTO of National Technical Systems.

“This was a huge milestone in validating the technical capability, ease of use and true interoperability that ISA100.11a can provide to users in the marketplace. As new ISA100.11a devices pass certification, we will expand our product testing scenarios to confirm the scalability, reliability and performance benefits of the ISA100.11a standard,” continued Ristaino.


The ISA100.11a industrial wireless networking standard is the first in the ISA100 family of standards. This wireless mesh network protocol standard ensures that supplier companies will build interoperable wireless automation control products. As a result, ISA100.11a device suppliers  are able to create, modify, optimize, and scale a wireless network quickly, cost-effectively, and seamlessly. Interoperability provides users the freedom to choose best-of-breed ISA100.11a  field devices from any supplier that are simple to deploy, reliable in their operation, and support traditional and future applications

Planned additions to the ISA100 family of standards include support for backhaul functionality, factory automation, and other key-use cases.

Wireless conformance testing

ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute Announces Selection of NTS for Certification Laboratory

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) has announced the selection of National Technical Systems (NTS) as its independent third-party lab to provide conformance testing for the ISA100.11a certifications starting this month. NTS provides companies and government organizations throughout the world with process and product compliance services, managed engineering services, design engineering services, and program management support.

“WCI selected NTS as the first independent provider of ISA100.11a conformance testing based on its depth of capabilities in wireless protocol testing, quality of operations, and geographic support,” said Andre Ristaino, managing director of WCI.

“We are pleased to be selected as the first lab to provide ISA100.11a conformance testing,” said Osman Sakr, CTO of National Technical Systems. “The ISA100.11a standard will greatly enhance the implementation of wireless systems in the automation and control environment.”

With the recent availability of the ISA100.11a Stack Conformance and Device Interoperability Test Kits designed to verify conformance, suppliers will be able to use the same test kits that NTS uses during certification testing. Suppliers will use these test kits as part of their quality assurance processes and in preparation for formal conformance testing.

NTS is an ISO/IEC 17025 accredited test lab.

Webcast to Detail Step-by-Step Certification Process

The WCI has scheduled a webinar which provides guidance to suppliers seeking to certify devices to the ISA100.11a standard. The webinar will include a step-by-step description of the conformance process, including whom to contact first, and how to get support during the product development process.
Webinar Date: Tuesday, 20 July 2010 at 11 a.m. ET USA