Skip to content

March 2023

President’s Welcome – March 2023

    Good morning, good afternoon, good evening – wherever you are in the world!
    I am thrilled and hopefully you are also excited reading this new edition full of amazing news from the OPC Foundation – the world’s largest ecosystem for industrial interoperability.

    OPC Welcomes Procter & Gamble as its 900th Member

      A leading consumer goods company, P&G is also a global leader in the smart manufacturing domain through its efforts to drive innovation by using digital technologies, including OPC UA, in a concept they call “constructive disruption.”

      OPC UA “REST” Subgroup Launched

        The REST group, as a sub-group of the OPC Foundation UA Working Group, will discuss use-cases for the integration of OPC UA via REST and propose potential extensions for the OPC UA specification. It is a special-purpose sub-group meant for IT (especially REST) experts and participants who work in Edge and Cloud computing.

        Digital Twin Consortium and OPC Foundation Announce Liaison

          The Digital Twin Consortium (DTC) and the OPC Foundation have worked closely in several open-source reference implementation projects on GitHub and have agreed to collaborate even closer to accelerate the development and adoption of digital twin-enabling technologies.

          Standardizing on OPC UA in Solar Energy Production

            The MAP Gateway system is standardized with OPC UA. It aggregates all asset data from solar plants, standardizes it and interprets it semantically using AI algorithms. Diverse pieces of equipment are assembled in Scatec’s solar fields. OPC UA creates compatibility between them.

            Compliance Corner – March 2023

              We thought we would do something a little different for our newsletter this quarter. We thought you might be interested in hearing from a vendor that has been through the Certification process. Learn from what they experienced, the benefits they received from the certification, and their honest feedback.

              FLC Corner – March 2023

                At this year’s Smart Factory and Automation exhibition in Seoul, the OPC Foundation showcased its new multivendor UAFX-based C2C interoperability demonstration. Also, the Foundation is working with TIACC on a TSN test specification working group to further development of an interoperable ecosystem of TSN-compliant devices.

                OPC Spider: Reduce Dev Costs & Improve Maintainability via OPC UA

                  Connecting production performance data collection systems and production plan management systems typically requires high initial cost for development plus ongoing renewal costs by highly trained individuals. Data linkage software “OPC Spider” solves these problems.

                  dataFEED OPC Offers Additional Security with OPC UA

                    With the integration of OPC UA Reverse Connect into its dataFEED OPC Suite Extended V5.22, Softing enables secure communication between OPC UA components in OT and IT that are separated by firewalls or DMZs. In addition, the current version V5.25 offers the “File Read” function which allows access to process data available via XML files.

                    Getting The Most from Your OPC UA Investments in 2023 and Beyond

                      You have made significant investments in your industrial control systems to leverage the many benefits of OPC technology over the years. Rip and replace to evolve with technology is not a good or economical option for running systems, but over time you need to move to OPC UA for the benefits of security, resilience, single common infrastructure, expanded functionality and more.

                      Efforts to Realize Manufacturing that Coexists with the Global Environment

                        Amid the growing trend toward a decarbonized society to halt climate change, OMRON is taking on new challenges to achieve carbon neutrality by becoming the first manufacturer to declare its membership in EP100*¹, an international initiative to improve energy productivity. One of these activities is participation in the interoperability verification experiment of GAIA-X.

                        Exploring Plug & Play Cloud-Neutral Solutions using OPC UA

                          Cloud computing has become increasingly popular in various industries in recent years due to its scalability, cost-effectiveness, and flexibility. However, migrating legacy systems to the cloud can be challenging, especially when dealing with different service providers and their proprietary interfaces. One solution to this problem is using OPC UA as a cloud-neutral communication protocol.

                          Matrikon – Product News Q1 2023

                            Product news from Matrikon this month include: Modbus Adapter for Matrikon Data Broker (Modbus MDBA) with OPC UA; Updates to Windows DCOM; and OPC UA data modeling with Matrikon Data Broker (MDB).