Thursday, March 20, 2008
Enhanced Certification program to exceed end user expectations, through validation of products for simple, secure, reliable interoperability.
The OPC Foundation has announced the opening of its first Independent Certification Test Lab to validate and certify OPC products. The new Test Lab is located at the premier facility of Ascolab in Erlangen, Germany. OPC Foundation President and Executive Director Tom Burke said: The Ascolab staff members have been designers and developers of OPC Certification tools since our earliest days. They are widely acknowledged as the experts in OPC Certification and they provide a solid foundation on which to build our certification program.
Companies who purchase OPC-compliant products expect secure, reliable interoperability in a highly plug-and-play fashion, said Burke. All products newly-certified by the Test Lab will carry a new OPC Foundation Certified logo, thus providing end users with an assurance of excellence. The Certification program means that users can expect reduced system installation costs and products that will perform reliably in multi-vendor installations.
According to Craig Resnick, Research Director, ARC Advisory Group. "Compliance certification will provide manufacturers with the confidence that their suppliers products will work right out of the box with any other suppliers product that's compliance certified.
By specifying the purchase of OPC Certified products, users will ensure interoperability. Too much time has been spent by us in the past playing referee between suppliers who point fingers at each other instead of coming together to deliver solutions, said Bruce Honda, Process Control Advisor, Weyerhaeuser. Certifying to a common set of functions and features should assure that manufacturers like us get true compatibility between different suppliers products."
John Weber, President of Software Toolbox, one of the premiere OPC Foundation Member companies, added: End-users want quality products, and one of the primary OPC Foundation goals must be to ensure delivery of the highest quality OPC products. End-users already expect at a minimum that products will have been through existing OPC Foundation self-certification testing. In the long term, as our Test Lab program rolls out worldwide, they will also look for the independent OPC Foundation Certification logo. Software Toolbox is one of the first companies certifying their products through the new Test Lab.
Paul Hunkar, OPC Foundation Director of Compliance & Certification and consultant engineer at ABB commented: To successfully integrate complex systems using products from multiple vendors requires that products be completely interoperable and simple to maintain, while providing plug-and-play configuration and high reliability. The Independent Certification Test Lab system provides the infrastructure to ensure that vendors are designing and shipping high-quality, high-performance and high-functionality products.
The backbone of the Independent Certification Test Lab is the reference hardware/software that is the basis for testing all other products. The following companies have provided hardware/software to the lab as part of this program: ABB, Beckhoff, Cyberlogic, GE Fanuc Intelligent Platforms, ICONICS, Kepware, Matrikon, OSI, Rockwell Automation, Siemens, Softing, Software Toolbox and Wonderware.
All successfully-tested products and their certification details will be posted on the OPC Foundation website. End-users will use the online product catalog as a tool to make intelligent purchasing decisions.
About The OPC Foundation The OPC Foundation, dedicated to interoperability in automation and enterprise computing, is an independent, non-profit organization that comprises leading manufacturers and solution providers in factory and process automation as well as enterprise solutions. The OPC Foundation's charter is to develop worldwide industry-standards for data transfer offering multi-vendor interoperability and seamless connectivity of measurement and automation devices, systems, networks, and enterprise computing solutions used in the manufacturing and process industries, by leveraging open computing technologies. Development of specifications is undertaken by volunteers from 450+ members worldwide. For more information about the OPC Foundation visit www.opcfoundation.org.
OPC Training Institute Media Contact: +1-780-784-4444 info@opcti.com www.opcti.com
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.