PLCopen (www.plcopen.org) and OPC Foundation (www.opcfoundation.org) have begun to cooperate on manufacturing execution system (MES) connectivity, integrating machine and process data for MES use based on OPC UA and PLCopen standards. The organizations held a kick-off meeting in November at SAP.
"We are glad that SAP and also organizations like VDMA and ZVEI are supporting this initiative," said Stefan Hoppe, president of OPC Foundation Europe. “MES experts will influence the content and connectivity which is handled via OPC UA and IEC 61131-3 technologies. Within a short time all major players from controller and MES manufacturers signed to support the new group.”
PLCopen and the OPC Foundation first joined forces in 2008 to combine their technologies for a platform and manufacturer-independent information and communication architecture. The groups announced an OPC UA Information Model for IEC 61131-3 in March 2010.
"With the basic cooperation between PLCopen and OPC Foundation in place, and the first results of the coupling of the IEC 61131-3 software model to OPC UA available, this is the next logical step," said Rene Simon, chairman of PLCopen.
The joint effort will focus on defining communication mechanisms and the semantics for MES integration.
