RPMGlobal has continued to play a role in the development of the International Society of Automation (ISA-95) committee’s latest Information Exchange Profile which, the company says, will pave the way for industry-specific integration scenarios for the mining sector.

The most recent ISA-95 committee meeting culminated in the “Part 8 – Information Exchange Profiles” being officially accepted as part of the global ISA95 standard, according to RPMGlobal.

According to Paul Beesley, RPMGlobal’s Chief Technology Officer and ISA-95 Committee member, this part of the standard will enable joint development of industry-specific integration scenarios. This is “especially useful when building off-the-shelf integration between mining technology vendors,” he explained.

RPMGlobal said the successful achievement follows 18 months of regular committee liaison meetings to finalise the documentation and more than three years of effort to move from the conceptualisation phase to an approved extension to the standard.

The Brisbane, Australia-based company played a prominent role in building this extension to the standard, it said, adding that the changes were accepted in the first round of voting with no negative votes, which is “highly unusual”.

Beesley said the result “cemented the company’s position as a respected contributor and leader in mining enterprise integration”.

He added: “Having the extension to the standard accepted creates significant value to mining companies as it provides a blueprint for mining software vendors to work together to enable information to seamlessly move between systems.

“This extension to the standard solves a common problem across many standards so it’s pleasing to see early interest from other committees in using Part 8 as reference material to develop similar amendments to their own standards.”

ISA-95 Chairman, Chris Monchinski, said: “As a committee we are excited to have industries outside the traditional manufacturing space participate in evolving and improving the ISA-95 standard to make it more accessible. The work done here allows other industries, such as mining, to build on the experience from the manufacturing sector.”

The ISA is a highly respected professional body responsible for developing widely used global standards for the instrumentation and automation of systems across a variety of industries.

After recognising there was a lack of a framework for mining technology providers, the committee turned its attention to the creation of a best-practice model for the sector after it was approached by BHP, RPMGlobal said.

The ISA-95 standard has since been readily adopted by key technology providers, enabling the breakdown of barriers within the mining industry and across the entire value chain, the company added.

“Connecting disparate systems to share data and critical information has never been more important for the mining industry than it is today,” Beesley said.

“The ISA-95 standard has helped unlock a standardised communication language for mining technology providers and RPMGlobal is proud to contribute to the progression of the standard for the benefit of everyone in the industry.”