SPONSORED BY: Softing Industrial Automation
Many manufacturing companies face the challenge of integrating machines that have been running reliably for decades but are not prepared for today’s digital requirements. Proprietary protocols, missing semantics, and heterogeneous machine parks make connectivity to modern IT/OT systems complex.
OPC UA Solutions for Unified Namespaces (UNS) provide a way forward. A UNS serves as a centralized, structured data layer – a true “single source of truth” – that unifies information from machines, controllers, IT systems, and applications in real time. OPC UA offers the technical foundation by structuring the Unified Address Space, standardizing data, and enabling the use of Companion Specifications such as PA-DIM for process automation or Weihenstephan Standards (WS) for the food and beverage industry.
Softing Industrial bridges the gap with specialized data integration solutions. Legacy protocols like Siemens RFC 1006 or Rockwell PLC5 can be translated into OPC UA models, while raw machine data can be mapped and semantically enriched. This allows even older controllers to be integrated efficiently into a modern UNS – without expensive system overhauls.
For example, a Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500 can be easily connected via Softing’s edgeConnector Siemens, mapped to Companion Specifications, and enriched with semantic information.
The benefits are clear:
- unified data access across all levels
- higher data quality through added context
- reduced integration effort, and
- future-proof interoperability.
Instead of being roadblock, brownfield machines become an active part of the digital factory.
Learn more in the webinar with Andreas Röck, including a live demo showing how to create and model a custom Unified Namespace and integrate Siemens SIMATIC S7-1500. https://go.industrial.softing.com/l/918823/2025-08-26/34t9z2