The 2025 year of events for the North America region, once again, boasts a full complement of expos and symposia… in February, we supported the ARC Forum as a Gold Sponsor and had the pleasure of welcoming Amine Benammar from Air Liquide to the OPC stage. His contribution was well received by the audience, wherein he advocated strongly for OPC UA certification to aid in the integration of systems from multiple OEMs at Air Liquide.
Earlier in the year, the OPC Foundation was proud to be a contributing author to a joint cooperation on Secure by Demand: Priority Considerations for Operational Technology Owners and Operators when Selecting Digital Products, which can be found here on our website. This document bears the seals of 11 of the top federal security agencies around the globe. The content serves as an advocacy tool for owner/operators to change the conversation with their automation suppliers, thus, helping the end-user community become more cyber secure against threat actors.
Upcoming events include the Manufacturing IT/OT Summit in Boston from March 16-18, where the OPC Foundation will be on stage and participating in workshops. In parallel to this event, the OPC Foundation is also holding an interoperability session at the Schnieder Electric offices in Andover, MA. These IOP sessions are invaluable to participants, whereby they have opportunity to interact with other manufacturers products in a vendor neutral, collaborative atmosphere.
Other events that are of interest include Automate 2025 in Detroit from May 12-15, where the OPC Foundation will have a large booth and personnel ready to answer questions and provide educational support. IoT TechEx is another event where we will be on stage and available for meetings. It is in Santa Clara, CA from June 4-5.
And last, but certainly not least, is a new flagship event, occurring from September 16-18 in Atlanta, Georgia called the Smart Production Solutions, Atlanta (SPS). This event is bringing the world’s largest automation event to the United States – you may recognize the event from its roots at SPS Nuremberg, which has been continuously operating for over 35 years. The OPC Foundation is pleased to serve as an advisory board member and will be exhibiting and presenting at this event. Please plan to attend.