NEEDHAM, Mass., Oct. 18, 2018 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Industrial Internet Consortium® (IIC™) today announced results and updates to its Smart Factory Web Testbed. The testbed welcomes Microsoft as a member to the testbed team, joining Fraunhofer IOSB and Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI). The Smart Factory Web Testbed will be part of the IIC Pavilion (Hall 2, Stand D411) at IOT Solutions World Congress from October 16-18 in Barcelona.
The Smart Factory Web Testbed has two operational smart factories at Fraunhofer IOSB in Germany and two more at KETI in Korea. The testbed is based on a new business model for a web of smart manufacturing resources and assets that improve access to factory capabilities and optimization of equipment and interoperability via industrial manufacturing standards.
The testbed uses Automation (Markup Language) ML, a neutral data format based on XML for the storage and exchange of plant engineering information, and OPC Unified Architecture (UA). OPC UA is a popular industrial interoperability standard with extensible data modeling capabilities, security and an array of different communication protocol bindings, including MQTT, AMQP, TCP/IP, HTTPS and more recently TSN. It can be used from sensor to cloud. Microsoft Azure will enable smart factories to build test, deploy and manage IoT web and services applications and to process data.
"Smart factories face pressure from competition to respond to new market opportunities and to fill small orders," said Kym Watson, Researcher and co-chair of the testbed, Fraunhofer IOSB. "The Smart Factory Web Testbed's network of factories allows manufacturers who want to improve order fulfillment and create new business to assign flexible production resources across multiple sites. The testbed also allows them to use 'plug and work' functions and data analytics."
Sam George, Director, Azure IoT, Microsoft Corp. said, "Many factories have had difficulties adapting machines and processes on the shop floor to fill small orders because of incompatible data or inefficient system engineering. Microsoft Azure makes it easier for factories to connect to the Internet, integrate ERP applications and services and send and receive standardized manufacturing data reliably across disparate factories using open industrial standards to fulfill orders where it makes the most economic sense."
IIC testbeds are where the innovation and opportunities of the Industrial Internet – new technologies, new applications, new products, new services, new processes – can be initiated, thought through and rigorously tested to ascertain their usefulness and viability before coming to market.
About Industrial Internet Consortium
The Industrial Internet Consortium is the world's leading membership program transforming business and society by accelerating the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). The IIC delivers a trustworthy IIoT in which the world's systems and devices are securely connected and controlled to deliver transformational outcomes. The Industrial Internet Consortium is a program of the Object Management Group (OMG). For more information, visit https://www.iiconsortium.org.
Note to editors: Industrial Internet Consortium is a registered trademark of OMG. For a listing of all OMG trademarks, visit https://www.omg.org/legal/tm_list.htm. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE Industrial Internet Consortium
Share this article