We believe that the sharing of a common language in a highly diversified field of the value chain of industrial equipment such as that of “Control Systems and Instrumentation” is of fundamental importance for all the involved parties. To date it is common to encounter efficiency losses deriving from the co-existence of different nomenclatures which were born from the widespread practice of calling the same goods or services with different names.

Thus the Standard Categorization was designed between November 2015 and January 2016, in collaboration with SupplHi, to guide buyers in their search of suppliers in the various detailed merchandise categories.

The category tree – common also to the other product groups which SupplHi focuses on – features three levels: Groups, Families, Categories. This helps guide the user through the main logical nodes. What defines such a categorization is the ability to create a new category each time competition amongst suppliers differs (e.g. ‘not everyone can supply everything’). This also implies a simplification and reduction of the category tree if a given set of goods or services is provided by the same variety of suppliers (e.g. ‘everyone supplies everything’). Therefore, in contrast to other categorizations, the discriminating factor does not lie within the product or the technology itself, but in the competition of the supply side of the market.

A reference Standard concerning instrumentation and control systems does not yet exist. The standardization requires the opinion of all the involved parties, as well as a continuous updating over time – also to keep up with new technological trends. For this reason, any kind of comment, doubt or concern can be sent to: ais@aisisa.it and/or info@supplhi.com.