ISA100 Opening Plenary -- a talk by ExxonMobil's Pat Schweitzer

Pat Schweitzer gave me permission to post this text-- it is the text of the talk he gave on Tuesday at the ISA100 opening plenary...and for the first time, ExxonMobil has allowed him to make a strong statement about how ExxonMobil feels about wireless. I'll let Pat speak for himself:

2009 Mountain View Opening Plenary

Welcome to the first quarter face-to-face meeting of ISA100. First and foremost I would like to thank Dr. Peter Fuhr and Apprion for making these arrangements and hosting these meetings here at NASA Ames Research. 

I would also like to thank ISA for asking me to continue to serve as your co-chair for one more year, but my presence here is more than just to add another user to the voting roster. It is an expression of the commitment and importance that ExxonMobil has placed in the output of ISA100 and the emergence of ISA100.11a. ExxonMobil views the work done in ISA100 as strategic. In the past we had made technical decisions on systems that were associated with proprietary solutions or were vendor specific. As many of these systems reach lifecycle completion it became apparent that reliance on technology that was supplier based was locking us into future decisions that were outside our control. With the reduction in our knowledge base due to an aging work force the corporate knowledge of those technical decisions and our own base of system sustainment are also diminishing. As we are looking to replace those systems at the end of life it has given us the opportunity to evaluate the next technologies that will represent the next “step-out” in how we operate our facilities. Although we agree that legacy systems will be present in our facilities for the foreseeable future and we need to be aware of integrating old with new, it is the future we are looking to secure.

Standards based technology gives us some of that reliability and security that we are attempting to achieve. The most reliable technical solution is one as a corporation that we can control or own. The control system world though, is outside what most would consider ExxonMobil base business; however, we do have corporate expertise in this field and our requirements and ability to operate free from IP restrictions needs to be maintained. ExxonMobil is supporting ISA100 as it views this open standards body as a vehicle where our requirements can be vetted in an open forum with an output that would ensure our suppliers will meet our corporate specifications through our influence in the process. Reliance on proprietary or consortia based specifications where we have no input or influence is a risk to future security and our commitment to excel and increase our margins. We feel this is the best option for us to continue to have freedom to operate and improve our operations.

I thank you all for the work you have done and I am privileged to be associated with the best in class this industry has to offer. Good luck to all of you this week and have a great week of productive collaboration.