The Importance of Being Competent: the Role of Competence Centres in the Fieldbus World

As far as their application in practice is concerned, fieldbus system are still a new technology that many potential users are not quite aware of. Competence centres can provide such users with know-how and thus help to improve the acceptance of these new concepts. This article presents an overview of the services a competence centre can provide, with a particular emphasis on training activities. We shall also describe a European project dedicated to the establishment of new competence centres in the countries of Central Europe.