FIELDBUS FOUNDATION™ General Assembly

The Fieldbus Foundation™ General Assembly is a yearly event that travels from one continent to another. The 2009 Fieldbus Foundation General Assembly took place in Yokohama, Japan. Yokohama is situated southwest of Tokyo, and is reached after a 45 minute train ride.

The Fieldbus Foundation General Assembly was held in the Pan Pacific Yokohama Bay Hotel, which lies next to the main building of the well-known engineering company JGC (formerly Japan Gasoline Co., Ltd.). About 200 attendees visited this event.

M. Hideaki Miura, Senior Executive Officer and General Manager of Engineering at JGC, presented the keynote presentation.

JGC Corporation had its first experience with fieldbus technology in a pilot plant at its own laboratory in the late 1990s. In 2000, JGC completed a small-scale FOUNDATION™ Fieldbus application as the first Japanese commercial installation in a pharmaceutical facility. Since then, JGC Corporation has implemented a number of major FOUNDATION Fieldbus projects in the process industry. One of their latest achievements is their involvement in the Shell Pearl GTL project in Qatar.

Following the keynote speech, many other major users, i.e. ISP Corp., Essar, Mitsubishi Chemical, Shell etc. presented their latest findings concerning FOUNDATION Fieldbus technology.

Next year's General Assembly will take place in North America.