INDU3 - USE

In industrial production, networking and digitalization of machines and plants are becoming increasingly important. In recent years, the OPC UA standard for communication in Industry 4.0 has gained popularity. The foundations for interoperable use of OPC UA are being laid in industry associations. Yet many end users of IT communication technology, especially SMEs, are not IT experts. In order to create a smooth and target-oriented configuration for machine communication with OPC UA in individual manufacturing companies, the specific know-how is often lacking. The specific know-how to create a smooth and target-oriented configuration for machine communication with OPC UA In individual manufacturing companies is often lacking.

Aim, approach and benefit

The aim of the project is to support the creation of company-specific OPC UA solutions. For this purpose, a software tool (Universal Setup Environment, USE) will be developed to guide through the process and thus enable non-experts in OPC UA to implement the communication setup networking in half a day.

The use cases with the greatest added value will be identified for the software tool. The appropriate communication options must be selected for these use cases in conjunction with and the respective production facilities. As a basis for this selection, the given options are cataloged and assigned to machine types and use cases. A possibility for adaptability in the control and data flow must be considered. Finally, executable software is generated from the collected information for a specific communication setup implementation in the company. Suitable model transformations are created for this purpose.

This allows all market participants to benefit quickly from machine networking. On the one hand, this strengthens competitiveness in an increasingly digitalized environment, and on the other hand, it ensures that requirements, e.g. for mandatory verification in production, can be met in the future.