The presentation will explain how the streamlined CS for flat glass processing increases the quality of data to level-up interoperability in glass processing.
In 2022, the VDMA-OPC Foundation Joint Working Group for Flat Glass Industries released the first Companion Specification (CS) to facilitate vertical communication between flat glass processing machines and higher-level systems. The second version, released in October 2024, enhances alignment with the ISA 95 specifications as well as the CS OPC UA for Machinery standards OPC 40001-1 Basic Building Blocks and OPC 40001-3 Job Management, both of which were updated with the working group’s involvement. Job management can now be applied more broadly across various industries, and for flat glass processing, it has been enhanced with the JobTargetDefinition, developed within the Flat Glass Industries working group, which serves as a recipe for producing panes or insulating units (per VDMA standard sheet 24124). The JobTagetDefinition will be the focus of the presentation.
Additionally, definitions for calculating key performance indicators (KPIs) from ISO 22400 were expanded and refined through collaboration with the ISO 22400 committee. By combining the time definitions from ISO 22400 with states of the involved machines (MachineryItemState and MachineryOperationMode), a more accurate and meaningful calculation of Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) is now possible.
The intensive collaboration with the above-mentioned committees has significantly deepened the understanding of the process descriptions on all sides and thus enabled the industry-specific specification to be streamlined.