Industrial Communication Systems

25-1

25.1 Introduction

e expression “process automation” confronts us with two meaningful words: process and automation.

Usually

the fol

lowing

de

nition

is pre

sented

in the tec

hnical

lit

erature,

e.g

.,

[PO

L94],

for a pro

cess:

A

process

represents

the

entirety

of

consecutive

interacting

activities

within

a

system

to

transform,

store

or tra

nsport

mat

erial,

ene

rgy

or inf

ormation.

is

denition

covers

not

only

processes

encountered

in

technical

domains

but

also

nontechnical

ones

such

as

business

processes.

erefore,

the

technical

literature

provides

us

with

a

denition

for

a

technical

pro

cess

as fol

lows:

A technical process is a process, whose ph