The MTConnect Institute and OPC Foundation have made available the MTConnect-OPC UA Companion specification release candidate (RC). The companion standard will allow the existing information model provided by MTConnect to be leveraged by existing OPC UA systems at the enterprise level, according to Tom Burke, president and executive director of the OPC Foundation.

"The MTConnect-OPC UA companion specification has been developed to ensure a uniform information model that can be used via the MTConnect standard and the OPC UA standard," says Paul Warndorf, secretary of the MTConnect Institute and vice president of manufacturing technology at AMT–The Association For Manufacturing Technology. "This information model can be used by manufacturing technology equipment, devices, software or other products that implement our standards."

MTConnect is an open, royalty-free communication standard intended to foster greater interoperability between manufacturing equipment, devices and software applications, harnessing a wealth of information and data available from the shop floor. The OPC Foundation says the UA standard provides secure, reliable, high-speed communications, and is the result of the collaboration of the leading worldwide automation suppliers. The OPC UA specification defines a standard set of interfaces, methods and an extensible set of objects for use in process control and manufacturing automation applications to facilitate interoperability.