For over 100 years, a large global chemicals manufacturer has been leading innovation with gases, technology, and related services used by many industries worldwide. The company’s engineering team began to explore how they could migrate from their traditional method of control to a system of ‘state-based’ control, using OPC UA.
In early 2018, Part 14 of the OPC UA Standard, aka “Publish-Subscribe” or “PubSub” was released, helping to encourage further interaction between OPC UA and communications protocols such as MQTT.
No matter in which part of the world you are, as a representative of the OPC Foundation you are always welcomed, since the challenge of industrial interoperability exists worldwide and can only be solved together. Global cooperation and harmonization are key tasks for the OPC Foundation going forward -not just across borders but inside vertical industries as well.
Interest in recent OPC Foundation events has reached a fever pitch. At the 1st Interoperability Conference World in April, 32 individual groups participated representing the entire spectrum of industry. In May, at OPC Day Automotive, 300+ attendees learned about OPC UA as the link between IT and factory in automotive manufacturing. In July, OPC Foundation presents a series of events across Asia.
The OPC Foundation is pleased to announce the nomination of Peter Lutz as the new Director of the Field Level Communication (FLC) Initiative. In his… Read More »New Director of Field Level Communications Initiative
Under the leadership of VDMA Woodworking Machinery, the EUMABOIS working group “OPC UA – Plug & Work” is developing a uniform interface for communication between… Read More »Eumabois: OPC UA for Plug & Work in Woodworking
Microsoft Corp. and the BMW Group announced the Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) initiative to enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector. The OMP will be compatible with the existing Industry 4.0 reference architecture, leveraging the industrial interoperability standard OPC UA.
Connecting OPC Classic clients and servers when the Windows computers are not on the same version, not in an Active Directory or domain, and having everything work well takes skill, and keeping it secure involves a lot of details. OPC UA makes such situations infinitely more workable by taking the limitations, pitfalls, and inconsistencies of DCOM out of the equation. However, the security of an OPC UA connection is only as good as the encryption algorithm being used to encrypt it.
The Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa) conduct interdisciplinary energy research in the building and mobility sectors. Empa relies on OPC UA to interconnect its research infrastructure – specifically, three large-scale projects named “NEST,” “ehub” and “move,” plus all the components involved in producing, storing, transporting and converting energy.
Beckhoff Automation has announced greater integration of OPC UA communication technology into TwinCAT Scope software. In the context of Industrie 4.0 and big data applications, machine data acquisition via OPC UA and analytics tools are becoming increasingly important. TwinCAT Scope software provides optimum support for integrated data acquisition across heterogeneous system environments.