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Standards & Protocols

ISA100 WCI Launches Certification Services

July 27, 2010

ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute meets significant milestone with protocol stack and product certification.


RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, NC -- The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) announced the formal launch of ISA-100.11a certification services. With official testing of devices completed in late June 2010, participating suppliers can now offer ISA-100.11a-certified products.

ISA-100.11a certification testing is being conducted for the WCI by National Technical Systems, Inc. (NTS) (NASDAQ:NTSC), an independent third-party engineering, testing and certification company.

Notable among suppliers in this initial launch is Nivis LLC, earning certification for their ISA-100.11a communication protocol stack. Nivis, a leader in secure, open standard wireless sensing and control networks, is the first to have an ISA-100.11a-certified protocol stack—enabling integration of ISA-100.11a wireless communication technology into real-world industrial plant applications.

"This is a significant milestone for WCI and the ISA100 Standard. WCI conformance testing services provide a vital link between the standards development process and implementation of the resulting standard in the marketplace. Conformance testing provides assurances to end users that registered ISA-100.11a devices will interoperate and adhere to their requirements," said Andre Ristaino, managing director of WCI.

"We ran rigorous tests on devices submitted in June using the WCI test kits and are pleased with the results, especially having had several of the first devices meet the ISA-100.11a requirements" said Osman Sakr, CTO of National Technical Systems. "We look forward to testing additional products as they become available."

Manufacturers are expected to make their own product announcements in the coming weeks. These will be in addition to the recent announcements from Honeywell and Yokogawa highlighting ISA-100.11a-compliant products at their respective user conferences.

"It is and has always been our mission to support our members with their adoption and implementation of the ISA-100.11a wireless standard," continued Ristaino. "As new products pass certification, we look forward to seeing the first commercial installations of industrial wireless systems that demonstrate the scalability, reliability, and performance benefits of the ISA-100.11a standard."

With a planned maintenance review underway, the ISA-100.11a standard is expected to be submitted to the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for approval in early 2011. Certified products already deployed can maintain compliance with a simple, over-the-air firmware upgrade provided by the vendors-a clear example of one of the future-proof benefits of the standard.

The ISA-100.11a industrial wireless networking standard is the first in the ISA100 family of standards. This wireless mesh network standard protocol helps supplier companies build interoperable wireless automation control products. As a result, manufacturing sites are able to create, modify, optimize, and scale a wireless network quickly, cost-effectively, and seamlessly.

Planned additions to the ISA100 family of standards include support for backhaul functionality, factory automation, and other key-use cases. Details on the approved standard, the ISA100 roadmap, and use-case presentations are available at the ISA100 Web site.

About the ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute
The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) is a non-profit industry organization providing users and developers with market awareness, educational information, technical support, and compliance for the ISA100 family of universal industrial wireless standards. The WCI provides real world feedback from deployment of ISA100 devices and systems to ISA Standards Committees in order to foster rapid refinement and development of open industry standards for wireless applications. Institute members include end users, technology suppliers, research and development professionals, academia, and other industry consortia and standards bodies. Early members include Apprion, BP, Chevron, Chongqing University of Posts and Telecommunications, ExxonMobil, Fuji Electric, Gastronics, GE, Honeywell, Nivis, Procter & Gamble, R3 Sensors, Shell, Shengyang Institute of Automation, Yamatake, and Yokogawa.

About National Technical Systems
National Technical Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of engineering and testing services to the defense, aerospace, telecommunications, automotive and high technology markets. Through a world-wide network of resources, NTS provides full life-cycle product integrity support, offering world class design engineering, compliance, testing, certification, quality registration, and program management.






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