- 110 machines
- 28 software solutions
- 70 companies
- 10 countries (Australia, China, Germany, Italia, Japan, Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Taiwan and USA)
Those are some impressive numbers for a a trade-show demonstration!
There‘s no better connection than that of a common language – which is also true for machine tools. The easier they exchange and share information, the more efficient they are.
In a joint effort, 17 partners and VDW created umati (universal machine tool interface). It enables machine tools and peripherals to connect to customer-specific IT ecosystems – easy, secure, and seamless. umati is an open standard for machine tool users throughout the world. It serves to exploit new potentials for manufacturing of the future.
After launching the project in September 2017 at EMO Hannover, machine tool builders Chiron, DMG Mori, Emag, Grob Werke, Heller, Liebherr Verzahntechnik, Trumpf and United Grinding committed themselves to the working group. Application partners GF Machining Solutions, Pfiffner and control technology experts Beckhoff, Bosch Rexroth, Fanuc, Heidenhain, Siemens share their know-how as well as the ISW at Stuttgart university, with their extensive OPC UA knowledge.
Individual Mapping and Transformation Based on OPC UA
umati is based on an OPC UA companion specification. OPC UA is the ideal communication platform for different industrial devices due to its open data model. In addition, umati realizes customer or manufacturer specific mapping and transformation of parameters through standardized configuration.
umati has set itself the goal to create the standard for
connecting machine tools to IT systems in the production
environment (vertical integration). In the long term, the
following parameter groups are covered:
- Uniform machine identification
- Operating state of the machine tool
- Information on production order
- Supply information (energy, material)
- Tools and workpieces
- Storage systems
- Forecasts on user interactions
Experience umati Live at EMO Hannover 2019
At the EMO Hannover 2019 umati will be showing a demonstration of the interface standard in a special show. Trade visitors can inform themselves about the project in hall 9 and learn how a central consolidation of the data on a demo dashboard takes place. Implementations of the common interface can be experienced at the project partners’ booths throughout the show. They feature various machines and controllers which connect to a variety of communication partners and the umati demo dashboard.
“Around 50 machine tool manufacturers from all over the world will be joining forces to show how umati makes machine data usable,” says Dr. Alexander Broos, umati project manager and Head of Research and Technology at the EMO organiser VDW (German Machine Tool Builders’ Associationon). Trade show visitors will experience live the benefits the standardised interface offers.
“umati represents a quantum leap in the implementation of Industry 4.0 in production,” explains Broos. “The use of a standardised interface will give machine tool users and their customers a whole new dimension of benefits,” he continues. The networking of machines, systems and software is one of the most important trends in manufacturing right now. Today’s customers expect to be able to integrate new machines into their own IT ecosystems with no difficulty. umati does this on the basis of the international interoperability standard OPC UA – easily, quickly and securely.
For over two years, a team of various machine tool manufacturers – today’s core partners – have been working on developing this uniform language for machine tools. Together with control manufacturers, they aimed at making its use as user-friendly as possible. “The concept is so impressive that many international manufacturers, but also various associations and scientific institutions, have signalled an interest in participating in umati,” reports Broos.
“We assume that this already impressive list of companies will be considerably extended before the fair,” says Broos. Interested parties can find out about the current number of participants at any time on the Internet at www.umati.info.