The OPC Foudation is pleased to welcome L’Oréal, a leading global cosmetics producer as a new OPC Foundation member. Beyond choosing to standardize on OPC UA as a key enabler for its IIoT era Operations 4.0 initiative, the world’s largest cosmetics company decided to join the OPC Foundation so it could actively participate in the development of the OPC UA standard. L’Oréal did this to ensure OPC UA best addresses the needs of its next-generation production lines.
By standardizing on OPC UA, L’Oréal can harmonize its machine-to-machine and IT/OT communications, thereby providing a solution for efficient horizontal and vertical integration. Looking to implement its Operation 4.0 initiative, L’Oréal quickly identified the need for a standard that could enable full machine interoperability for its packaging lines and OPC UA fit the bill.
Mariatou Sagna-Biaré, Corporate Filling & Packing Manager at L’Oréal, explained: “Operation 4.0-compliant packaging lines can only be achieved if communication at machine level, between machines and IT systems is harmonized. We joined the OPC Foundation not only to be involved in the evolution of the standard, but also to send a strong message to our machine suppliers that OPC UA is now a must for our packaging lines”.
To further optimize factory floor packaging line integration, L’Oréal is also considering implementing the OMAC PackML standard in an OPC UA context. With a common set of machine states and defined data tags (called PackTags), PackML perfectly aligns with OPC UA information modeling capabilities.
As a testament to the value of the OPC Foundation’s many collaborations with various international standards bodies, the OPC UA Companion Specification for PackML was released in 2018 and now, a year later, provides L’Oréal, with an off-the-shelf OPC UA based information model L’Oréal can use best realize its Operations-4.0 initiative.