New members to plug and produce! .

UAO (UniversalAutomation.com) has welcomed new members to the organisation at this year’s Hannover Messe opening this morning (17/4/2022).

The newest members to drive further development of the ecosystem of portable, interoperable, “plug and produce” solutions are

Analog Devices Armony System Edith Cowan University, KPI Automation Master Systèmes Odot Westcon Current members include:  Aalto University, Actemium, Advantech, ASRock Industrial, Belden Group, Cargill, Crescent, Dynamic Process, ENGlobal, ESA, ExxonMobil, Flexbridge, Gr3n, Graybar, Hirschmann, HTW Berlin, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Intel, Jetter, Kongsberg Maritime, Kyndryl, Luleå University of Technology, Lumberg Automation, Mayer, Phoenix Contact, ProSoft, R. Stahl, Schneider Electric, Shell, TaoTech, Upstate Automation, Wilo, Wood and Yokogawa.

UAO will present a next generation universal automation demonstration on their stand, in Hall 9, Floor G70, where the same application can run on multiple hardware independently of the manufacturer. This is made possible thanks to the shared runtime execution engine managed and further developed by UAO members. All entities looking to help advance industrial automation are encouraged to join.

They will drive the development of a vendor-agnostic ecosystem of portable and interoperable “plug and produce” software that can run with UAO-compliant hardware. By decoupling software and hardware, sharing a reference runtime implementation of the IEC 61499 standard, and merging the information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) worlds, the organisation seeks to create an entirely new category of industrial automation devices and unleash the full potential of Industry 4.0.

A Universal Future.
“It is a pleasure to welcome these companies as the latest additions to our growing industry network,” said John Conway, President of UAO. “The foundation of our work relies on industry collaboration; it is only together that we can implement a shared runtime and shape the future of the industry.”

"Armony System implements innovative digital solutions for industries and infrastructures," said Laurent Cachot, CEO at Armony System. "Today, we carry out projects from design to commissioning in automation and industrial IT. We therefore do a lot of specific developments for our customers. By integrating UAO, we can reduce this development and capitalize on software components and offer more services to our customers."

“Using the new standard IEC 61499 standard for distributed automation, we will be able to facilitate an open and collaborative manufacturing environment, allowing us to expedite product development for our customers,” said Kevin Wang, President at Odot.

“As a system integrator we believe that adopting the new IEC61499 standard is an effective way for us to develop sustainably,” said Maurice Re, Sales Director at Master Systèmes. “We believe in the virtues of innovation that will allow us to differentiate ourselves from the competition, improve the quality of our services and reduce our costs. We have joined UAO to share knowledge and strengthen relationships with different stakeholders.”

@Join_UAO @Odotautomation #PAuto #Automation #IEC61499 #HM22

Runtime membership assembly.

UniversalAutomation.Org (UAO), an independent, not-for-profit association managing the implementation of an industrial automation shared runtime, hosted its first annual membership assembly on the 24th of May 2022 in Frankfurt, (D).

The physical and virtual event invited all members of UniversalAutomation.Org to discuss the future implementation of UAO runtime based on the IEC 61499 standard for distributed information and control systems. The meeting provided an opportunity for members to explore the current challenges and future trends facing the industry, including the importance of plug and produce and flexible approaches to Industrial automation.

The board was announced for the year ahead, with ESA, ExxonMobil, Intel, Kongsberg, Wood and Schneider Electric filling the positions.

Beginning with a roundtable discussion and updates on the UAO setup, the day comprised of individual company updates and a discussion on the future of UniversalAutomation.Org.

IEC 61499 defines a generic architecture and presents guidelines for the use of function blocks in distributed industrial-process measurement and control systems (IPMCSs). This architecture is presented in terms of implementable reference models, textual syntax and graphical representations

“We were delighted to hold our first annual membership assembly with our UniversalAutomation.Org members. This year we’ve made great strides in enabling vendors, end-users, OEMs, and academics to share a common automation runtime engine across their automation technology,” said John Conway, President of UniversalAutomation.Org. “We’re excited to see what this next year holds for all our members and the future of technological collaboration.”

“It was great to be able to discuss the future of UniversalAutomation.Org with all its members,” said Sølve Raaen, Principal Architect at Kongsberg Maritime & Board Director at UniversalAutomation.Org. “This type of collaboration is what we need to continue making strides in advancing industrial automation and creating a market of “plug and produce” automation solutions to benefit our customers.”

UniversalAutomation.Org enables vendors, end-users, OEMs, and academics to share a common automation runtime engine across their automation technology regardless of brand. The technological collaboration creates an entirely new category of industrial automation device where the decoupling of software from hardware drives the development of an ecosystem of portable, interoperable, “plug and produce” software components.

@Join_UAO @teamlewisglobal #PAuto #Industrie4

Compliance assures application portability, interoperability and efficient engineering & easy maintainability.

UniversalAutomation.Org (UAO)* has announced the first launches of UAO-compliant offers from Advantech, ESA S.P.A, Kongsberg Maritime, Flexbridge and R. Stahl.

At ARC Industry Forum 2022, UAO are showcased the latest solutions in a live demo. This provides potential members, from end-users to providers, with the first opportunity to see the technology in action and the benefits provided by the shared runtime.

Using the same UAO runtime based on the IEC 6199 standard for distributed information and control systems, the offers will allow customers to test the benefits of the technology, notably:

• Application portability – applications can be developed independently of the hardware, and then be seamlessly deployed and run on the different devices.
• Application interoperability – one application can be deployed to multiple devices that will then interoperate automatically at the application level to execute the distributed application.
• Efficient engineering & easy maintainability - using plug & produce, asset-centric software components.

Advantech
“Advantech looked at using IEC 61499 many years ago, developing a very advanced prototype with NxtControl GmbH”, said Marco Zampolli, Industrial IoT Product Sales Director at Advantech, “but we didn’t release the offer to market because we were alone. The creation of UniversalAUtomation.Org resolves this issue, creating an Ecosystem of IEC 61499 vendors and users that will drive innovation by creating portable reusable software components to solve common problems, particularly in IT/OT convergence and information orchestration. Advantech wants to play a leading role in this UAO Ecosystem with our Uno-430 data gateways.”

ESA. S.P.A
“We launched our first IEC 61499 offer at SPS Parma on 24th May,” said Cesare Colombo, Chief Marketing Officer at ESA. S.P.A. “ESA has been committed to innovation as a supplier of automation systems for machine builders for over 40 years. This latest offer using UniversalAutomation.Org shared-source runtime engine is further proof of that. We are fully committed to the digital transformation of our customers, and the asset-centric plug & produce approach of UniversalAutomation.Org addresses many of the pain-points of our customers”

Kongsberg Maritime
“As a supplier of control systems for ships and offshore platforms, we were looking for a solution to better orchestrate the different mechanical & electrical sub-systems,” said Sølve Raaen, Principal Architect at Kongsberg Maritime. “We had been considering IEC 61499 for several years because of its object-oriented event-driven architecture. The creation of UniversalAutomation.org was the turning point for us as we saw it as evidence that the technology was reaching maturity. We use the UniversalAutomation.Org runtime as an orchestration layer for our control systems.”

Flexbridge
“Flexbridge AB is an innovative startup from Sweden that develops provisions of flexibility in manufacturing and process technologies in a form of swarm intelligence” says Dmitrii Drozdov, CTO at Flexbridge. “We enable adaptivity and reconfigurability of production lines by embedding nanoPLCs called Iceblocks into their parts. Iceblocks master wireless communication including 5G and mesh network and are programmed in IEC 61499 enabled by the UAO runtime. This enables the key benefits of fully decentralised control and engineering of heterogeneous systems integrating the swarm with devices of other vendors.”

R. Stahl
“R. Stahl is one of the pioneers in remote I/O technology for hazardous locations. Our company philosophy is to bring products to the market that offer advantages to the end users by integrating latest available technology and make it usable for the explosion hazardous environments.” said André Fritz, Senior Product Manager at R. Stahl. “Embedding the UAO IEC 61499 runtime in our Remote IO, makes it very simple to integrate to any Universal Automation system – plug & produce! The cherry on the cake is the real-time/right-time capabilities of IEC 61499 will allow us to also implement IIoT functions directly in the IO devices, and this allows Stahl and our Ecosystem to provide added value to our customers. This is like a toolbox for digitalization in hazardous areas.”

“We are delighted to announce the launch of the first UniversalAutomation.Org-compliant offers and are sure it is the first wave of many.” said John Conway, President of UAO . ”Users can now test the UniversalAutomation.Org technology and experience the benefits for themselves”.

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* UAO enables vendors, end-users, OEMs, and academics to share a common automation runtime layer across their automation technology regardless of brand. The technological collaboration creates an entirely new category of industrial automation device where the decoupling of software from hardware drives the development of an ecosystem of portable, interoperable, “plug and produce” software components.

@Join_UAO @ARCWorldForum@teamlewisglobal #PAuto 

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