Tuesday, March 24, 2009
The OPC Foundation announced today that it has officially opened a North American Certification Test Lab to validate and certify OPC products. This new lab joins the first OPC Test Lab opened in Erlangen, Germany in 2008. As uncertain economic times force new demands on every industry, companies that want to maintain their leadership position need to make future facing decisions when considering their network architectures. No company can afford to take chances, and that is the underlying premise behind creating a local North American test lab: local experts, testing local products, in a local environment.
Companies in todays changing economy need assurance and confidence in the products they buy and solutions they implement, commented Thomas Burke, OPC President. They expect secure, reliable, plug-and-play software solutions that are future ready and scalable. The OPC Foundation has always been committed to upholding the true standards of interoperability and the new North American Test Lab is a continuation of the Foundations commitment to ensuring excellence of software production among its members.
Compliance certification provides end-users, manufacturers, and integrators with one thing confidence, said Burke. The North American Test Lab was built on proven principles established by other open-standard organizations like PROFIBUS, PROFINET and Fieldbus Foundation. Compliance testing in these organizations has resulted in bulletproof products that exceed end-user expectations. The new North American Certification Test Lab will usher in a new level of confidence for individuals who are integrating software into complex systems from multiple vendors. Software certified from the OPC Foundation North American Test Lab will truly be a step above the rest.
Eric Murphy, Chair of the OPC Foundation HDA Committee stated, The economic pressures of todays market mean end-users face real issues and tough problems. As the crunch comes down users need to squeeze more value out of their systems. Now more than ever integrators need projects to go smoothly, and end-users demand higher reliability and performance from the products they purchase. The way to achieve these goals is to ensure the OPC products being used meet the tough standards of the Independent OPC Certification process like those provided by the new North American Independent Certification Test Lab.
End-users looking for true interoperability seek out OPC Servers and OPC Clients that have passed the rigors of Independent Test Lab Certification. They have a peace of mind knowing their software has passed the OPC Foundations highest level of compliance testing. With the opening of the new Test Lab comes a change in OPC Foundation policy. Vendors who wish to use the term OPC UA in their product name must pass certification through the Test Lab. This strict certification process is designed to provide a new level of mandatory quality assurance and a peace of mind for end-users of OPC UA products, said Burke.
As with the existing test lab, the North American Certification Test Lab will reference hardware and software from many OPC Foundation members including ABB, Rockwell Automation, Siemens, and Wonderware, among others.
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The OPC Foundation is dedicated to ensuring interoperability in automation by creating and maintaining open specifications that standardize the communication of acquired process data, alarm and event records, historical data, and batch data to multi-vendor enterprise systems and between production devices. Production devices include sensors, instruments, PLCs, RTUs, DCSs, HMIs, historians, trending subsystems, alarm subsystems, and more as used in the process industry, manufacturing, and in acquiring and transporting oil, gas, and minerals.
The OPC Foundation is governed by a Board of Directors elected by the membership. The Board, in turn, appoints the Foundation's Officers and the OPC Chief Architect. A Marketing Committee and A Technical Steering Committee have been established, as have various working groups.