OPC UA is Addressing EU Regulations like Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), Digital Battery Passport (DBP) and AI
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening – wherever you are in the world! Welcome to the newest edition of our newsletter – let’s immediately start with fantastic news from the OPC Foundation – the world’s largest eco-system for secure, semantic, industrial interoperability.
European Parliament Releases the EU CRA (European Cyber Resilience Act)
With a few exceptions, this EU CRA applies to all network-enabled products and must be implemented by all of us offering products within 36 months, without national law having to come into force. Legal force only starts with the publication of the exact adopted text. Please note that publication is considered a formality.
At the OPC UA Security Summit on June 05-06, 2024 in Munich, prominent speakers from the EU CRA Commission, French ANSSI, German BSI, American FBI, and will answer the questions: What does it mean? What must be implemented by when? What does OPC UA already deliver? See more information here.
Past Highlights
I would like to highlight three events that have happened since our last newsletter here.
- Feb 3-7, 2024 SLAS in Boston, USA
OPC UA has grown into the laboratory world. Domain experts have released the “OPC UA for Laboratory Analyzer Device Standard” (LADS) last year and thus the OPC Foundation helped to promote this solution in Boston at the SLAS trade show. Attendees signaled huge interest as OPC UA is already well known in the world of industrial automation. Automation is growing into the world of labs and analytics with use-cases like cobot support and valuable data that can be used directly in AI applications.
. - Feb 4-8, 2024 ARC Forum, Orlando, USA
The OPC Foundation presented its newest solutions like the Carbon Footprint report and OPC UA Energy Working Groups in Orlando during the ARC Forum as THE meeting point in North America. For me it was interesting to see “OPC UA Inside” visible at the booths of who’s-who exhibitors like ABB, Bentley, CESMII, CODESYS, COPA, Endress+Hauser, Hitachi, HiveMQ, Honeywell, Intel, mpact2wo, Phoenix-Contact, Rockwell, Schneider-Electric, Siemens, and SMAR.
Attendees: “OPC UA is easy to implement!”
I already reported about the LADS community in earlier newsletters. Please see this short video how they organize three hackathons per year, each lasting two days, and how attendees are guided to implement OPC UA within just two days of their first server loading their information model and the connection to their machine. Congrats!
Upcoming Event: Hannover Messe
The next highlight is the upcoming Hannover Messe April 22-26, 2024 with unbelievable news – please join our booth in Hall 9 Booth 30. Today I am happy to share just few topics:
- The new demo will show the EU Digital Battery Passport (which will become mandatory for some batteries used in the EU) integrated into the Digital Product Passport (DPP) and Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) Proof of Concept (PoC) CESMII and the OPC Foundation showed at Smart Production Solutions (SPS) 2023. The demo is based on OPC UA modelling technology – the stabile and backward compatible standard since 2006 (for 18 years!). The OPC Foundation will again open source the PoC.
- Do not miss our “OPC UA for IT/Cloud” event on Wednesday, 24th April, 2024 starting at 1:00pm in Convention Center Room 3A.
- Please stay tuned for new exciting announcements where OPC UA is growing out of the core industrial automation market but instead heavily grow into the IoT world.
Certification and Field Level
Our Field Level Communication (FLC) initiative is in the process of launching a second project phase as as the Minimum Viable System (MVS) for Controller-to-Controller (C2C) has been completed. In addition, the OPC UA FX Plugfest showed great support by industry suppliers. Read the article from Peter Lutz here.
Collaborations/Working Groups: Incredible 32(!!!) Releases within 2 Month
Please follow this link and see the incredible number of published companion specifications since our last OPC Connect newsletter in December 2023.
- Dec 13 – Dec 31, 2023: 17 Releases
- Jan 01 – Feb 18, 2024: 15 Releases
Two Groups Reach “Call for Review” Status – Congrats!
- Feb 13th, 2024: Review OPC 40200, UA for Weighing Technology, V2.00
- Feb 15th, 2024: Review OPC 34100, UA for Energy Consumption Management
The OPC UA technology is growing into new areas and we are looking forward to announcing new partnerships with key associations during Hannover Messe. Stay tuned!
Upcoming Groups
Stay tuned as we start the call for paticipation soon:
- OPC UA for AI / AI for OPC UA
- OPC UA for Digital Batterie Passport
Events 2024
OPC Foundation will participate in lots of international trade shows around the globe to demonstrate its secure, semantic interoperability, scaling from field to cloud, as well as digital twins. Please be aware we sold all 14 partner pods available at Hannover Messe 2024 – just very few open pods are available for SPS show. I invite you to have a look at the 2024 international events posted on the OPCF website:
- Call for sponsors https://opcfoundation.org/advertising/
- List of activities https://opcfoundation.org/events/
Success Story: OPC UA in world of Food Production
The Swiss machinery manufacturer Bühler plays a crucial role in meeting the basic food and mobility needs of two billion people. This is because a large proportion of the machines used in food production and die casting come from Bühler. OPC UA has been used since 2014 and it is the base of their components “Pluto” and “Mercury MES”. Major industrial customers have increased the efficiency of their production and reduced energy waste and water consumption with Bühler’s OPC UA-based solutions. Read their success story here.
Please stay healthy and think about how to make the world better. Let’s meet during Hannover Messe in person – I will be on the booth all five days.
Stefan Hoppe