Yokogawa’s Shinji Oda named chairman of OPC Foundation

The OPC Foundation elected three new members to its board of directors, including Steve Blackwell, worldwide tech leader for manufacturing of AWS; Praveen Rao, global director, head of manufacturing industry for Google Cloud; and Dr. Jingyi Hu, chief strategy officer of industrial digitalization of Huawei. Additionally, Shinji Oda from Yokogawa was elected as the board’s chairman.

Oda succeeds Dr. Holger Kenn of Microsoft as chairman. Oda has extensive experience within both technical and standardization realms, focusing primarily on the process industry during his decades within Yokogawa.

The significance of OPC UA within each cloud vendor’s structure has developed to become an enabler for manufacturing and process delivery. By appointing Christoph Berlin, vice president of engineering, to the OPC Foundation board of directors, Microsoft has elevated OPC UA.

“We welcome Christoph Berlin as the successor to Dr. Holger Kenn on the board of directors of the OPC Foundation,” said Oda (Figure 1). “A big thank you to Dr. Kenn for his contribution to the OPC Foundation. I am deeply honored by the trust and confidence the board members have placed in me, and I intend to faithfully fulfill my new role to meet their expectations. Yokogawa has been significantly involved in the development of OPC technology since the OPC Foundation’s inception and has supported its growth. As the convergence of OT and IT creates new value, I am delighted to play a role at a time when OPC UA is seen as a key technology for realizing smart manufacturing, from the field to the cloud.”

It's no coincidence that new board members of the OPC Foundation include companies from the industrial cloud sector, all aligned on standardizing open and secure data interoperability in Industrial IoT and Industry 4.0.

New board members commented on the role OPC UA will play in modern industrial systems.

Blackwell said: “The future of manufacturing is being shaped by AI's ability to turn data into actionable insights and drive operational efficiencies (Figure 2). However, this potential can only be fully realized when data is accessible and interoperable across the entire manufacturing ecosystem. Open standards like OPC UA help provide the necessary foundation for seamlessly integrating manufacturing data into cloud environments, enhancing productivity and accelerating the digital transformation across the manufacturing sector.”

Hu said: “Chinese industry is booming, and OPC UA is the cornerstone of Chinese industrial digitalization (Figure 3). We believe there are four megatrends of industrial digitalization; they are digitalization of industrial equipment, fully connected industrial networks, conversion to cloud-based industrial software and value realization of industrial data. Huawei is both an enabler and an active practitioner of industrial digitalization. We will focus on ICT Infrastructure to collaborate with OPC partners; we will jointly build the industrial intelligent twins and promote the New Four Modernizations of industry.”

Rao said: "Open, interoperable standards like OPC UA are crucial for enabling digital transformation in industrial settings (Figure 4). This collaboration will help empower businesses to harness the power of the cloud and unlock new levels of efficiency and innovation."