Industry News

FDT Group appoints board of directors

April 25, 2023

Endress+Hauser and Rockwell Automation leaders assume seats after unanimous member vote

Paul Brooks, manager, technology business development, strategic development for Rockwell Automation, and Rolf Birkhofer, managing director for Endress+Hauser digital solutions have been voted in by the FDT Group member community to serve in leadership roles on the FDT board of directors, which sets the executive strategy for the organization and provides governance over the open FDT standard, which affects the global manufacturing-automation industries by providing a unified environment for industrial device management and IT/OT data-driven operations for the process and discrete markets supporting smart manufacturing, efficiency and sustainability initiatives.

Brooks and Birkhofer replaced board members Lee Lane, Rockwell Automation, and Francois Ichtertz, Endress+Hauser, respectively, due to their departure to new roles. They join existing board members including Andre Uhl, Schneider Electric; Michael Kessler, PACTware; Shinji Oda, Yokogawa; and Ed Silva, Flowserve.

“We appreciate the service Lee Lane and Francois Ichtertz provided to our organization,” said FDT Group Managing Director Steve Biegacki. “Paul Brooks and Rolf Birkhofer bring a wealth of process and factory automation industry experience to their new posts on our board. They will play an important role in guiding the FDT Group organization and FDT/DTM technology roadmap through collaborative initiatives focused on innovation and differentiation that deliver new value to customers.”

Brooks has more than 30 years of experience in the industrial market and currently leads the commercial and technical teams responsible for the strategy around open aspects of the Rockwell Automation System Architecture. This includes Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA) and Field Xchange (FX) strategy, EtherNet/IP development, network architecture, 5G direction and application orchestration. He was a member of FDT Joint Interest Group (JIG) in 2003.

Birkhofer’s near 20-year career in industrial automation stems from his electrical engineering background and managing director roles at CodeWrights and Endress+Hauser. He oversees digital solutions for process applications at Endress+Hauser and is involved with technology standards groups including Advanced Physical Layer (APL), Device Descriptions (DD), Field Device Integration (FDI) and Field Device Tool / Device Type Manager (FDT/DTM).

The primary purpose of the FDT Group is to provide an open standard for enterprise-wide network and asset integration. The FDT standard is globally adopted by IEC 62453, ISA 103 and GB-T 29618-2017.