Support, use of FOUNDATION fieldbus increasing in Japan

Austin, Tex. – The Fieldbus Foundation recently conducted a survey of its members that indicates an accelerating adoption rate of FOUNDATION fieldbus throughout Japan. The study found that many of Japan’s leading companies in oil and gas, chemical, pulp and paper, power generation and other industries have implemented FOUNDATION technology.

Japan’s major FOUNDATION fieldbus end-users include Tokyo Electric Power, Coca-Cola West Japan, Mitsubishi Electric, Mitsubishi Chemical, Sumitomo Chemical, Kaneka Corp., Nippon Mitsubishi Oil, Nippon Paper Industries, Research Reactor Institute of Kyoto University, Meidensha Corp., Nihonkai LNG, JGC Corp., Shikoku Electric Power, Teijin Ltd. and Toray Industries.

Hisashi Sasajima, FF’s Asia-Pacific operations vp, attributes FOUNDATION fieldbus’ support among Japanese end-users to its performance advantages in mission-critical control applications. ‘Increasingly, Japan’s industrial community is making FOUNDATION fieldbus the ‘technology-of-choice’ in a wide range of process and manufacturing automation applications,’ says Mr. Sasajima, who works for Yamatake Corp., and also serves on the foundation’s executive committee. ‘Challenging economic conditions worldwide, and particularly on the Pacific Rim, have created demand for new solutions that not only optimize production processes, but also remove barriers to information integration across the plant and/or enterprise. FOUNDATION fieldbus is just such a solution. It is a technology that will allow companies in Japan and elsewhere to dramatically improve the business results of their plants and factories in the years ahead.’

Mr. Sasajima adds that FF’s member survey found there are at least 150 FOUNDATION fieldbus-based systems now operating throughout Japan and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region, and that these systems work with as many as 8,000 registered devices currently in service.

Besides spurring demand among end-users, FF is benefiting from the growing support and involvement of Japan’s largest industrial controls suppliers. Currently, representatives of three Japanese member companies – Yasunori Tsuchiya of Fuji Electric, Seiji Onoki of Yamatake, and Akira Nagashima of Yokogawa Electric – sit on the foundation’s board of directors. Three Japanese representatives also serve on FF’s executive committee. Besides Mr. Sasajima, they include Takashi Ikeda of Fuji Electric and Yoshitsugu Morioka of Yokogawa Electric.

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