Connectivity is key for all machines and production systems in a connected factory. It means getting data in and out of devices and software systems. The Umati initiative (universal machine technology interface) supports this issue by promoting open standards. Because of its importance Sirris decided to become its first Belgian partner.
Within the Umati initiative leading machine builders, component or software suppliers jointly develop the semantics for machinery (defined as an OPC-UA companion specification). Umati creates uniformity in data and communication across industries and supports interoperability within production. Umati supports communication between different machines, robots, AGVs and other manufacturing equipment. This allows for a plug-and-play connectivity between machines and software and enables customers to easily access data from their machines.
Sirris identified Umati as a leading initiative in the rollout of Industry 4.0. Because of Umati’s importance, Sirris wants to raise awareness and help Belgian companies to adopt this promising communication protocol. Therefore Sirris is proud to announce that is has become the first Umati research partner in Belgium.
More concretely, we will support Belgian manufacturing companies in this topic and therefore we plan to:
- build a demonstrator illustrating the potential to industry
- discover the benefits, possible limitations and the level of detail of the data models
- check the deployment of the Umati models for machines and equipment on their feasibility in SMEs
- offer knowledge and support for the implementation of Umati
- provide feedback towards the OPC UA models that Umati covers.
On the one hand we want to know which technology suppliers want to support and offer Umati in the future. On the other hand, we want to cooperate with other European partners on recent developments and proofs of concept. Being a member of the Umati ecosystem gives us the opportunity to be inspired by and apply other Umati members’ best-practices and approach.
Within the COOCK project ‘Connected Manufacturing’ Umati standards are being used and studied, to assess their deployment for a transparent production. Interested? Contact us!
Read also our blog post Umati becomes the universal smart factory language.
