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.
Asset Performance Monitor is B&R’s first cloud application based on ABB Ability. By giving OEMs a reliable overview of all their machines in the field, it allows them to identify potential improvements, take service operations to the next level and unlock new business models and revenue streams. OPC UA guarantees the secure data transfer from the machine to the cloud.
Every year, Tefal SAS manufactures around 44 million products in what was a high energy-consuming process. They sought an energy management system that could be implemented without revising their existing architecture. Tefal ultimately decided upon ICONICS software and OPC communications, which now handle energy data from multiple meters, transformers, and PLCs.
It is an honor and I am happy to send you my first “President’s Welcome” greeting! We all are pleased to announce that OPC UA is omnipresent in magazine articles, industry fairs, manufacturer events, conference contributions, social media, and more. OPC UA is rightly being called the key or enabler for Industrie 4.0, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), the various initiatives from the USA (IIC), China (Made in China 2025), Korea (Manufacturing Industry Innovation 3.0), Japan (Industrial Value Chain Initiative) and others. I am therefore looking forward to the exciting times ahead and working together with you.
Join the OPC Foundation and a host of co-presenters at the World Interoperability Conference, held in conjunction with Hannover Fair. This watershed event takes place April 1st in Hall 19/20 Room New York from 12:00 – 15:30. It is free of charge to attend, but pre-registration is required.
Welcome to the Compliance Corner. We are proud to announce the OPC Foundation has certified its first product ever for an OPC UA Companion Specification Information Model. In this case, MDIS. Other updates here include results from our most recent InterOp and plans for the Conformance Test Tool (CTT).
Intel recently rejoined the OPC Foundation to participate in the OPC UA Field Level Communication Steering Committee and help develop specifications that will enable OPC UA to seamlessly communicate with field devices. We view OPC UA as well positioned to provide communications solutions for smart manufacturing as well as other verticals.
The Process and Instrumentation Diagram (P&ID) is the most important document used for designing and building a plant. The DEXPI initiative has developed a data format that supports the move from a document-centric to a data-centric approach -with the help of an OPC UA companion specification.
Meeting demanding challenges at scale for machine-to-enterprise communication is a challenge faced in many industries. To solve their challenges, a Fortune 500 industrial gas and chemical delivery equipment manufacturer successfully deployed a fully compliant OPC UA based system for communication with its huge base of legacy, mission-critical systems