André Uhl is elected Chairman of the Board of Directors of FDT Group

The FDT Group, an international, non-profit industry association dedicated to the advancement of the FDT (Field Device Technology) standard for industrial device management, announced the election of André Uhl as chairman of its board of directors. Uhl is vice president of technology and architecture for Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business. The chairman’s major responsibility is to guarantee that the board effectively defines and implements the organization’s strategy and standard governance. According to a press release, the IEC 62453 standard directly benefits global manufacturing sectors by providing a consistent framework for industrial device management that supports brownfield, greenfield, and new smart manufacturing projects in the process, hybrid, and discrete markets. Uhl took over as chairman of Rockwell Automation after Lee Lane left for a new position.

Uhl has over 20 years of expertise leading R&D centres for industrial and motion control applications, as well as automation solutions for flagship products in the process, hybrid, and machine builder markets. Uhl, who is currently vice-president of technology and architecture for Schneider Electric’s industrial automation business, has been a member of the FDT board since 2016 and also serves on the ODVA Board and the OPC Foundation Unified Architecture Field Xchange (UAFX) steering committee, which are shaping the future of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). His commitment to collaborating throughout the industrial automation ecosystem is said to provide leadership and support for the organization’s executive strategy, which governs the open FDT standard.”I’m thrilled to be leading the FDT community focused on eliminating intelligent device management barriers for industrial automation markets,” Uhl remarked. “I’m passionate about open technology innovation and FDT’s vision of transforming manufacturing excellence by collaborating and expanding access to these technologies enterprise-wide on a data-centric platform critical to supporting the modern, connected industrial world.”