ODVA will form a new special interest group (SIG) for machine information for the purpose of developing standards for the exchange of information between machines, and between machines and supervisory systems. The resulting standards will provide data models and network services to optimize the exchange of machine information for purposes, such as production, energy or condition monitoring, business intelligence, batch and recipe management, and multi-machine line control.
ODVA says the SIG is one outgrowth of its machinery initiative, which is aimed at optimization of machine integration (OMI). The SIG's major focus will be development of data models for logical grouping of machine attributes along with services necessary for exchange of data between machines and other machines or supervisory systems. To simplify communication between heterogeneous systems using EtherNet/IP and CIP, sercos III and/or OPC UA, whenever possible the approach will be to adopt protocol-neutral data models, which can be adapted to any of the three technologies.
"Without such standard reporting methods and tools, manufacturers must rely on customized, and often proprietary, solutions in order to exchange machine information across systems or transmit data back and forth with the machine," says Katherine Voss, president and executive director of ODVA. "The technical output of the SIG will help to further the vision of OMI to define open and interoperable standards for integration of machinery assets and systems into the production domain."
ODVA says it will issue its call for SIG participants in Q2 2013 with an organizational meeting of the SIG to be held immediately thereafter. The initial scope of work will focus on the information and communication technology needs for use cases related to machine-to-supervisory communication.
