SPONSORED BY: TAKEBISHI
The data linkage between systems such as production performance data collection systems and production plan management systems are mandatory in the manufacturing industry. However, connecting these systems requires initial cost for development and renewal costs to improve the functionality and fix operational bugs or it requires high knowledge maintenance personnel.
Data Linkage software “OPC Spider” solves these problems.
OPC Spider is a software product that connects the shop floor to IT systems, allowing data from different systems and databases to be linked with each other without the need for code development. It drastically reduces development costs and improves maintainability compared to a development from scratch.
OPC Spider is a data connectivity hub by providing connectivity to a variety of data such as files, databases, BI tools and cloud services, and also acts as an OPC UA client to access data from different devices on the shop floor obtained via OPC UA.
As for the OPC Server products, which connects production equipment to the OPC Spider, please refer to “Related products” below.
Feature 1: Diverse Connectivity
With more than 130 function blocks, you can create a script with no-code development by simply dragging and dropping block icons. OPC Spider provides full functionality such as data conversion and handling input and output data; this reduces development cost.
For example, for databases it provides functions such as read/write, search and update. While, for OPC UA clients, it provides Read value and attribute, Write value as well as Read historical access.
Feature 2: No-Code Development
When different types of data need to be linked, OPC Spider can convert the data to the same type and handle the data as if all the data types were the same by using the mapping tool.
There are several blocks in the mapping tool that allow data conversion. These include basic arithmetic operations and output by condition.
Feature 3: Data Linking
The generated script can be output as an HTML specification to share the processing details between project members.
Feature 4: Automatic Specification Generation
A Japanese food company has installed OPC Spider in order to link an AI analytics package with data from the shop floor. The AI system needs to learn from various data through trial & error to create a highly accurate model via powerful analytics. OPC Spider can be used without special knowledge for programming. The staff on the shop floor can modify data via uploading into the AI analytics package and give feedback to the production equipment according to the result of AI analytics.
Use-Case
DeviceXPlorer OPC Server (DxpSERVER) is an industry communication platform software for Windows. DxpSERVER supports standard protocols in PLCs, robots, machine tools (CNCs), remote terminal unit (RTUs), MT-Connect, and IEC61850, providing connectivity for more than 400 series and 100 vendor devices.
Also, DxpSERVER has several upper-layer communication possibilities as Digital Experience (DX) platform, supporting OPC UA which enables the handling of historical data, structural data, and notification alarms, as well as cloud communication interfaces such as MQTT and HTTP.
Related Product 1: DeviceXPlorer OPC Server (DxpSERVER)
DeviceGateway is an IoT supported data access unit that can be used without a PC but is also able to connect various production equipment in the same way as DxpSERVER for the lower-layer communication. On the upper-layer communication, in addition to OPC UA, DeviceGateway provides cloud communication interfaces such as MQTT and HTTP, file transfer function (FTP and HULFT), and monitoring functions (SNMP). Furthermore, data processing and temporary buffering through event functions can be implemented without code.
Besides a hardware product, there is also a software version that runs in the container of a Docker-based virtual environment, which can be used with user applications on your hardware.
Related Product 2: DeviceGateway
