A new dawn in the automation industry!

Industrial leaders and pioneers have joined together to form UniversalAutomation.org (UAO) and advance the world of industrial automation. Vendors, end users, OEMs and academics will share a common automation software layer across their automation technology regardless of brand. This technological collaboration will drive the development of an ecosystem of portable, interoperable, “plug and produce” solutions, creating an entirely new category of industrial automation.

Current founding & intended members include: Aalto University, Advantech, Asus, Belden, Cargill, eaw Relaistechnik GmbH, ESA, ETP, Flexbridge, Georgia-Pacific, GR3N, Hirschmann, HTW Berlin, Intel, Jetter, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Kongsberg Maritime, Lawrence Technological University, Lumberg Automation, Phoenix Contact, ProSoft, R. Stahl, Schneider Electric, Shell, VP Process, Wilo, Wood and Yokogawa. Others are expected to join soon, with the organization actively recruiting new members.

Portability is already a reality in other market sectors. For example, mobile applications are developed to run across different smartphone vendors, enabling rapid advances through collective innovation. Until now, the industrial world has worked differently, with closed proprietary architectures and hardware-dependent software.  UAO will create a new era of openness and collaboration, decoupling software and hardware by sharing a reference runtime implementation of the IEC 61499 standard. 

“We are excited to be part of UniversalAutomation.org because it promises to be a complete gamechanger,” said Jac Opmeer, Principal Automation Engineer at Shell Global Solutions B.V. “It opens up a new world of possibilities for organisations like ours. Unlocking valuable data currently buried in proprietary systems, making the connectivity and deployment of new technologies like AI quick and simple. As part of UniversalAutomation.org we are actively collaborating with and supporting like-minded organisations to create an exciting new open era in operations and automation.”

UniversalAutomation.org will provide the basis for interoperable and portable automation software that can run with almost any Universal Automation-compliant hardware, creating an entirely vendor-agnostic ecosystem for automation software development. By merging both the information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) worlds, the organization seeks to unleash the full potential of Industry 4.0. 

“The creation of UniversalAutomation.org is the dawn of a new era within automation technology; over the course of the next five years, it will create a sea change for the future of automation software development,” said Dmitrii Drozdov, Chief Technology Officer at Flexbridge. “We are delighted to be a part of UniversalAutomation.org, driving the development of a “plug and produce” system which will help the industry keep up with the increasing demands of flexible manufacturing. There is no doubt that as members continue to join the organization and reap the benefits of collaboration and openness, that industry-wide change will follow.” “UniversalAutomation.org brings together vendors and users of technology, opening up the opportunity for continuous dialogue between members to share their knowledge. We’re excited to work with other members to enhance and develop our research and help combat the challenges currently facing industry,” said Valeriy Vyatkin, Professor of Electrical Engineering, Aalto University. “The IEC 61499 standard will help industry have a common platform for different types of software functionalities in automation, allowing organisations to achieve a certain level of reliability and predictability, as well as increasing flexibility of production plants.” “Wood is excited to be part of defining the future of automation and transforming profitability and productivity for the customers in our industrial markets. UAO technology will enable business innovation, increased digital adoption and agility with its open, interoperable and portable solutions- building business resiliency and empowering our clients to be future-ready,” says German Carmona, President of Wood’s Applied Intelligence business.

Members are working together to develop and adopt the next generation of Universal Automation solutions by collectively incrementing a runtime following shared source principles. Members will have access and the ability to shape the next generation of automation. The new organisation is actively recruiting new members. All entities looking to help advance industrial automation are encouraged to join.

Time for Universal Automation “Industrial operations are undergoing a total transformation,” said John Conway, President of UniversalAutomation.org. “As the IT sector has proven, advances in machine learning, augmented reality, real-time analytics, and the IoT hold great promise for step change advancements in performance, agility, and sustainability. However, within industry this promise is being held back by closed and proprietary automation platforms that restrict widespread adoption, hamper innovation, are challenging to integrate with third-party components, and are expensive to upgrade and maintain. Using a shared runtime changes all that.” Greg Boucaud, Chief Marketing Officer of UniversalAutomation.Org commented: “With the formation of UniversalAutomation.org, we are hitting the reset button on automation technology.  Using the IEC 61499 standard for distributed systems, we can create a new, open industrial environment that will lead to a more sustainable, efficient future.  UniversalAutomation.org will remove the barriers to innovation in automation by decoupling hardware and software and providing end users with the freedom they have been asking for — to easily integrate different technologies regardless of where they came from and fully optimize their automation systems.”

Industry advancement with interoperable automation software
Adopting a common runtime, shared across vendors, will provide limitless opportunities for growth and modernization across industry. The ARC Advisory Group found this move  could save the industrial market $30 billion (ca €26b) each year, which is currently spent servicing and maintaining the installed base of proprietary systems alone.  

UniversalAutomation.org members anticipate the adoption of this reference implementation-based approach to industrial automation to deliver a range of benefits, including: 

• Portability and reuse of software components on different systems, improving return-on-investment for software intellectual property (IP)
• Greater Innovation through the faster integration of new technologies and systems, development of new business models, easier connectivity, and flexibility to deliver customer requirements at greater speed 
• Extending the lifespan of existing industrial tools, devices and systems, and easier upgrading of systems reaching their end of life 
• Simplified training and skills (with teams only needing to learn one common system), making automation industry OT entry more accessible to IT professionals and the new generation of automation professionals
• Development of AppStore-like platforms to share apps around automation applications 

@Join_UAO @arc_advisory @teamlewisglobal #PAuto #Automation #61499

"Most important interoperability technology in industry!" - report.

The OPC Foundation has announced that the ARC Advisory Group published a report entitled “OPC UA Momentum Continues to Build” (pdf). This eleven-page executive overview provides timely insights into what makes OPC UA the global standard of choice for industrial data communications in process and discrete manufacturing industries. In addition, the report provides a list of ARC recommendations for process manufacturers considering adopting OPC UA.

Stefan Hoppe, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation, commented, “This ARC report serves an excellent independent overview of the role OPC UA plays in the IIoT era. Packed with facts about OPC UA, ARC’s expert industry insights, and practical recommendations, the report provides a great starting point for those considering adopting OPC UA as the core of their data interoperability infrastructure.”

Set against the backdrop of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0, the report examines OPC UA from multiple perspectives including how it differs from other connectivity technologies and standards. Topics examined include the technology OPC UA is based on and the OPC Foundation’s initiatives, collaborations, and governance. The report provides a well-rounded view of why OPC UA is so popular today and why OPC UA will continue to grow in relevance for years to come.

Key take-aways the report offers include:

• OPC Foundation is run independently and transparently, the OPC UA standard is open and vendor agnostic, and the standard and Companion Specifications are freely available to everyone. All of these factors help maximize OPC UA adoption. • OPC UA is an enabler for next-generation automation standards that will, according to ARC, potentially change the industry structure of process automation eg. Ethernet Advanced Physical Layer (Ethernet APL), NAMUR Open Architecture, and the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) • OPC UA is arguably the most extensive ecosystem for secured industrial interoperability • OPC UA is independent of underlying transport layers. As such, it uses the most suitable transports for the right applications (ex. TCP, UDP, MQTT, and 5G) • OPC UA is highly extensible via its Information Modeling (IM) capabilities. This makes OPC UA an excellent fit for use by automation vendors and other standards organizations wishing to express and share semantic data seamlessly across all verticals. • The OPC Foundation Field Level Communications (FLC) Initiative is defining a new OPC UA Field eXchange (OPC UA FX) standard that is supported by virtually all leading process automation suppliers. • OPC UA FX will extend OPC UA to the field level to enable open, unified, and standards-based communications between sensors, actuators, controllers, and the cloud. • Forward-looking companies should make OPC UA a crucial part of their long-term strategies today because the changes this technology brings will become a necessity faster than most people anticipate

“Industry faces issues today as result of the post-pandemic new normal. Those are e.g. maintaining supply chain integrity, the ability to shift to remote operations, the need for operational resilience and sustainability, and maximizing cybersecurity protection. That require a single framework for secure interoperability and information exchange as well as a common interoperability technology from cloud service providers to process field devices. Today this is mandatory for processors and manufacturers to grow and remain viable” according to Craig Resnick, Vice President, ARC Advisory Group. “OPC UA is the standard that solves these interoperability challenges, and acts as an ecosystem enabler to ensure that multiple open standards, such as Industry 4.0, NAMUR NOA, OPAF, and Ethernet APL can seamlessly work together. The goal is to ensure that all business and control information is based on a single version of the truth so companies can maximize their growth, productivity, and profitability.”

@OPCFoundation @arc_advisory @ARCWorldForum #PAuto #IIoT

Validating product interoperability.

HMS Networks launches new PTC Marketplace solution which enables users to bridge machine data to PTC’s ThingWorx® Platform using Ewon® Flexy and the Talk2M® cloud.

HMS Networks has announced the availability of a new extension which integrates the Ewon Flexy edge gateways, and associated Ewon Talk2M cloud, with PTC’s ThingWorx® Industrial IoT (IIoT) Solutions Platform. The Ewon extension for ThingWorx has been validated by PTC and has achieved ThingWorx Ready™ status.

The PTC ThingWorx Ready program enables technology companies to validate their products’ interoperability with the ThingWorx platform. Following a product’s ThingWorx Ready designation, that product becomes available on the PTC Marketplace, a digital space where PTC’s partners and customers can access and promote IIoT tools, market-ready solutions, and innovative technologies designed to aid solution deployments.

The Ewon Flexy extension for ThingWorx allows machine OEMs and systems integrators easy and secure data integration from PLCs from all major PLC vendors over the internet to the ThingWorx platform. With this integration, PTC partners and customers can implement state of the art remote machine service solutions customized to their specific markets.

“Remote machine connectivity is a core market for HMS Networks” says Kevin Knake, Vice President and Americas GM at HMS. “We are excited to be able to offer secure, out-of-the-box machine connectivity to ThingWorx via our proven Ewon Flexy and Talk2M solution. With this, we open a clear path for customers to offer market leading service solutions. ThingWorx services, including Asset Advisor, can be a great value for our machine OEM customer base.”

“We’re pleased HMS Networks is part of the ThingWorx Ready program. HMS’ new Ewon Flexy extension for ThingWorx opens up new possibilities for ThingWorx users to integrate machine data” says Jonathan Kateman, senior vice president, Strategic Alliances at PTC. “Our network of technology partners allows us to offer our customers and partners innovative resources that can add value to their IIoT solutions and help accelerate time to business value.”

@hmsnetworks @ThingWorx @PTC @mepaxIntPR #Pauto #IoT #TandM

Finding moving objects on-site easily.

The locating standard of the future.

Any manufacturing site has an incredible amount of moving objects. They have orders, material, carriers, tools, people, transport-equipment, and so on. How can we create a digital representation of these at a reasonable cost and based on a standard, which will allow full interoperability and secure any investments?

omlox started exactly with this target.

What is needed for any location transparency or any location-based service? These four elements are crucial:

I) The identifier: The moveable object needs to be identified. It could be done for unique objects by image recognition. But, since different orders often look similar, we need an unambiguous identifier. II) The infrastructure: The information of the moveable object has to be transported, and the location reference needs to be attached. There are different ways to handle it today, such as RFID-Gates, BLE or UWB beacons or land-marks, and a Wi-Fi network for SLAM based AGVs. III) The XYZ merging (Geo-Referencing): Location-aware objects come with their own coordinate-system. But they have to interact with other location-aware objects. As a result, there can only be one definition of the coordinates in the smart-factory. Talking the same language is essential. IV) The applications: There are applications for location data: navigating, tracking, routing, analyzing, warning, and so on. This layer will bring the final value of the location service.

omlox: The Industry 4.0 Location-based Service

omlox is defining standards in the cyber-physical location world: It is defining the interfaces between I) and II) as well as between II) and III) and III) and IV). All in all, omlox is the definition of three interfaces:

1. The air-interface between I) and II) for a physical reference.
2. The API between II) and III) to include any location data.
3. The API between III) and IV) to add any application.

With omlox, users can customize their location solution in a vendor-independent manner. Any mobile omlox device (I) from any vendor can be located by any omlox infrastructure (II) from any vendor. Any omlox hub (III) from any vendor can include any omlox core zone or other any complementary location zones (II) from any vendor. And any location application (IV) fulfilling the omlox specification can be connected to any omlox hub.

In the end, the complete factory design will change with smart location-based services.

@ProfibusUK @TRUMPF_News #PAuto

Oil and gas operators maximise production and efficiency.

Emerson Process Management and OVS Group are helping oil and gas producers accelerate decision-making to more effectively operate their oilfield assets. Emerson has expanded its Integrated Operations (iOps) solutions to include workflow software modules from OVS Group.

Gas-Lift performance curve with table of 

optimisation opportunities.

Integration of Emerson’s technologies and OVS software means users across the oilfield can automate the analysis of their data and reports to capture opportunities more efficiently. The joint solution works with Emerson’s DeltaV™ distributed control system via OPC connections and database integration to provide information for OVS’s comprehensive group of oilfield software solutions. OVS’s industry-proven software solutions assist oil and gas operators with oilfield applications such as gas lift optimisation, cyclical steam generation, and decline curve analysis.

Combining sensing, control, and workflow automation, oil and gas producers can automatically capture actionable events and drive insights that produce improved execution. Less time will be spent looking for data, performing data loading, and generating the manual reports that currently consume the bulk of the industry’s time.

Emerson’s iOps initiative addresses key areas including workflow automation to reduce errors in tasks, and information visualisation to improve decision making. Combined with sophisticated analytics from OVS, the integrated solution enables users to accurately and easily assess key information and identify opportunities for operations and business improvements.

“In today’s market, efficient production is crucial. We are pleased to be working with OVS to provide our clients with scalable solutions that can be applied today and drive greater operational efficiency,” says Jerry Brown, senior vice president of Emerson’s industry solutions.

“OVS Group has worked with operators over the past decade to develop a library of discipline-focused best practices that can leverage a very broad suite of the asset data and industry applications including the real-time and historical data from field automation,” said Sebastiano Barbarino, OVS Group CEO. “With this Emerson alliance, operational data will become a standard component of the best practices across disciplines to fully automate asset management and reduce the time and resources required to produce and optimise oil and gas.”

 @EmersonProcess #PAuto @ovsgroup

Wireless standard interoperility confirmed

Successful ‘Wireless Plugfest’ confirms the interoperability of ISA100.11a registered devices
Honeywell, Yokogawa, Nivis, GE, Yamatake, Fuji Electric and R3 Sensors Participate in Structured Interoperability Testing Held at NTS Lab

Plugfest Webinar
A free WCI webinar showcasing the results of the WCI December 2010 Wireless Plugfest is scheduled. The webinar will describe the objectives of the Plugfest, how it was structured, the results and, lessons learned. Presenters include Jay Werb, WCI Technical Director and Dr. Penny Chen, Principal Systems Architect at Yokogawa Corporation. It will be presented on January 18, 2011 and January 19, 2011.

The ISA100 Wireless Compliance Institute (WCI) announced the success of its recently held 'Wireless Plugfest.' This is a structured WCI member program conducted periodically to validate interoperability of wireless products compliant with the ISA100.11a standard. The event was held in December 2010, at National Technical Systems (NTS) labs in Los Angeles, CA.  NTS is an independent third-party engineering, testing and certification company.

The WCI Technical Steering Committee designed and planned this series of test scenarios to confirm interoperability characteristics in four functional categories; Provisioning, Networking, Application Configuration, and Data Publishing.

“We were thrilled with the outcome of the December 2010 WCI Wireless Plugfest and will expand the Plugfest program on an ongoing basis.  Our objective is to improve the user experience with ISA100 based products and maintain confidence in our declaration of assured interoperability,” said Andre Ristaino, managing director of WCI.

Test engineers successfully demonstrated interoperability of ISA100.11a based manufacturer field devices, provisioning devices, and gateways.  The test included registered devices submitted by suppliers including the Honeywell High Level Analog Input (HLAI) device, pressure and temperature devices and, Yokogowa pressure transmitter and temperature transmitters. Using a structured plan for assessing multiple combinations of network configurations, devices from participating suppliers were joined to gateways from Honeywell, Yokogawa and Nivis, Inc., and then configured to publish data through those gateways.

“We were able to demonstrate the effectiveness of the WCI technical documentation and the interoperability of the ISA100.11a devices and profiles,” said Osman Sakr, CTO of National Technical Systems.

“This was a huge milestone in validating the technical capability, ease of use and true interoperability that ISA100.11a can provide to users in the marketplace. As new ISA100.11a devices pass certification, we will expand our product testing scenarios to confirm the scalability, reliability and performance benefits of the ISA100.11a standard,” continued Ristaino.


The ISA100.11a industrial wireless networking standard is the first in the ISA100 family of standards. This wireless mesh network protocol standard ensures that supplier companies will build interoperable wireless automation control products. As a result, ISA100.11a device suppliers  are able to create, modify, optimize, and scale a wireless network quickly, cost-effectively, and seamlessly. Interoperability provides users the freedom to choose best-of-breed ISA100.11a  field devices from any supplier that are simple to deploy, reliable in their operation, and support traditional and future applications

Planned additions to the ISA100 family of standards include support for backhaul functionality, factory automation, and other key-use cases.

Missing link for control, monitoring, and interfacing

DNF Controls has released the AnyWhere Interface Box (AIB), a compact single-box "missing link" solution that provides eight opto-isolated GPI inputs, eight relay contact closure GPO outputs, one RS422/RS232 serial port, and one 10 BaseT Ethernet port. Designed for applications in A/V, industrial, radio, and television broadcasting market segments, the AIB supports GPI-to-GPO(s), GPI-to-serial, GPI-to-Ethernet, and GPI-to-SNMP control; serial-to-GPO, Ethernet-to-GPO, and SNMP-to-GPO monitoring; and serial-to-Ethernet and serial-to-SNMP conversions; all of which are user-configurable.

The AIB makes it cost-effective for users to address their unique and specific needs, whether by establishing interoperability between incompatible systems or extending the functionality of existing systems that would otherwise require costly custom programming or interfacing.

"Unlike any other single solution available, the AIB allows users to bridge systems and achieve that key bit of functionality they require — without performing any programming whatsoever," said Dan Fogel, DNF Controls' CTO. "It's a simple but powerful solution that can be easily and quickly configured and deployed where and as needed."

Easily managed by technical and nontechnical users alike, the AIB provides users with a Web browser-based configuration user interface featuring a series of drop-down menus and fill-in-the-box entries that make it easy to map an event input (GPI, serial, Ethernet, SNMP) to one or more action outputs (GPO, serial, Ethernet, SNMP). The configuration is saved in non-volatile storage in the AIB and can be saved to and restored from a PC.

The AIB can be powered by power over Ethernet (POE) or an optional 12-W external power supply. The box itself measures just 8.25 by 4.125 by 1.5 inches.

"Typically, when customers choose a piece of equipment, it does 90 percent of what they want," added Fogel. "Businesses make this compromise because the last 10 percent of desired functionality is just too expensive. The AIB, however, can supply that last 10 percent at a very appealing price point, and that's real money saved. What's more, the user benefits through greater efficiency and fewer errors."