The usage of FDT can be compared to the printer driver system known from office applications. The printer is delivered with the corresponding driver. That driver implements standardized interfaces so that any office application can make use of it.

In FDT, the hardware (the field device in this case) is delivered with a driver called DTM, which has the standardized FDT interface (see illustration). This enables any FDT Frame Application, e. g. control system or engineering and asset management tool to use it.