May 15, 2017. The OPC Foundation announced an expanded certification program due to a large increase in demand by end users and suppliers to certify their OPC UA enabled products.
“We opened up a new lab fourth-quarter 2016 with a new certification strategy inclusive of certification of our information models from our collaboration partners”, said Thomas J. Burke, OPC Foundation President.
“We decided to expand the reach of our certification process by opening up a new certification lab in Europe, and at the same time making this lab available to test both OPC Foundation member products as well as nonmember products. This lab will not only test the OPC UA functionalities but will also certify the implementation of OPC UA companion specifications which is the real key for Industrie 4.0 and IIoT Interoperability,” says Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation Global Vice President.
The OPC Foundation European Certification lab is located near Stuttgart, Germany leveraging the business and technical expertise of company Allmendinger.
The OPC Foundation European Certification lab has successfully been accredited and the first successful certified product was a Siemens RFID reader. Siemens’ Dieter Horst, head of product management Simatic Ident said, “Our UHF RFID readers of the SIMATIC RF600 product family support the Companion Specification OPC UA for AutoID which had been made in a joint effort between AIM Germany and the OPC Foundation, published in April 2016. The cooperation with the test laboratory Allmendinger was very straightforward. Having a competent partner so close made things easy and enabled a quick clarification of questions and solution of problems.”
The OPC Foundation European Certification lab provides suppliers with an opportunity to work directly with the certification testers validating compliance to the OPC specifications, and at the same time being able to validate interoperability with certified reference products.
OPC UA is the enabler for Industrie 4.0. The OPC Foundation major goals for the new OPC Foundation certification includes increasing the number of Industrie4.0 OPC UA based products being certified.
The requirement of Industrie4.0 really demands high-quality, fully-reliable products which is what the OPC Foundation certification program is all about.
About the OPC Foundation
Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has facilitated the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standards. As both advocate and custodian of these specifications, the Foundation’s mission is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets.