The OPC Foundation announced today 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 new 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 a unique 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.
Jörg Allmendinger, CEO of Allmendinger said, “Our European lab provides additional certification capacity and its availability results in a significantly reduced time from registration to the successful passing of all tests for vendors. Overlapping working hours with both the certification lab and the vendor in the European time zones as well as short transport ways are minimizing the testing preparation time and analysis in case of issues. We also welcome vendors who are assisting in the setup and configuration of their products personally in the certification lab as well as via remote access to their device.”
OPC UA is the enabler for Industrie4.0. 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.
OPC Foundation
opcfoundation.org
Filed Under: Industry regulations + certifications