VDMA is proud to announce that the integration of machines into production and their start-up will now become much easier thanks to an enormous standardization effort. Using VDMA as a platform, fourteen prestigious European machinery building and software companies dedicated to glass have developed a common standard following the requirements of the OPC Foundation. In this presentation, VDMA presents how the “Companion Specification OPC40301 Flat Glass” standardizes data exchange between production planning software and machines, making individual interfaces obsolete in the future. Further, VDMA will show the first draft of detailed specification of processing information that will extend this standard.
So, how will that impact flat glass processing? Tedious work for defining interfaces, implementation, and testing, resulting in cost, potential loss, and defect production, is reduced to a minimum. Thus, allowing quicker start-up with lower cost, leaving money in the pocket for other projects like intensifying the vertical integration of machines. In particular, concerning the issue of standardizing production and machine feedback, the fourteen companies will continue their standardization work under the umbrella of VDMA.
This paper is co-authored by Dr. Markus Schoisswohl and Dr. Klaus Mühlhans.
