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President’s Welcome – April 2018

    Welcome to the OPC Connect newsletter with important updates from the OPC Foundation, the OPC Connect sponsors, and the OPC community. In such a fast-paced world of innovations we are seeing great advancements by the OPC community leveraging the OPC UA technology, and our job is to increase awareness to you about these exciting innovations. Since February 2018, we have attended quite a few events all around the world, bringing the OPC UA technology/standards to new places and industries. And there will be more events to come.

    We will be exhibiting at the Hannover Messe: The Leading Trade Show for Integrated Automation, Industrial IT, Power Transmission, and Control from April 23rd through the 27th. We are very excited to be a special display at the OPC Pavilion and we really look forward to talking to everyone about the interesting new places that the OPC technology is being used. You can find us at the OPC Foundation main booth in Hall 9 – A11. Also, we are proud to be part of the Microsoft booth in Hall 7 – C40 showing Azure’s automatic industrial asset management using OPC UA; and at Hall 7 – A02, SAP will be showing OPC UA enabled automated guided vehicles connected to their systems.

    Following Hannover Messe, we will be heading to the NorTex Data Science Cluster in Houston, Texas, USA on May 2 where we will be showcasing the next generation of OPC UA enabling the IoT. The NorTex Data Science Cluster is, “a continuation of discussions during OTC 2016 and 2017 in Houston with focus on digitalization and effective interoperability,” and the OPC Foundation is very enthused to be involved in this event again this year.

    There are many more events scheduled in 2018, see: https://opcfoundation.org/events/.

    In other exciting news, I would like to welcome Veronika Schmid-Lutz to the position of Chairwoman of the OPC Foundation Board of Directors. Veronika brings a wealth of leadership and experience which will help to increase the effectiveness of the OPC Foundation Board of Directors.

    We have many exciting programs in the OPC Foundation to help your company from both a technical and a marketing perspective with the OPC UA technology. From a technical perspective, as a member of the OPC Foundation, you have the ability to participate in the many technical working groups. From a marketing perspective, as a member of the OPC Foundation you have the ability to increase awareness about your products and services via the many marketing opportunities, including trade shows and events. Take advantage of these great opportunities.

    Not a member of the OPC Foundation yet? Check out the benefits of becoming a member by going to our website: https://opcfoundation.org/membership/benefits/. Do you have an OPC UA product released or under development? Be sure to make use of the Certification program provided by the OPC Foundation and increase awareness of your product by listing it on the OPC Foundation website.

    Please keep Stefan Hoppe and myself informed of the great innovations that are happening inside of your company; we would love to hear from you. We want to showcase your OPC enabled products, whether on our OPC demo-walls or through this OPC Connect newsletter. We are always interested in end-user application stories of how they are using OPC UA.

    Please make sure you regularly check the OPC Foundation website for new information and exciting opportunities for leveraging the OPC technology. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to read this edition of the OPC Connect newsletter!

    Tom Burke
    President & Executive Director
    OPC Foundation