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.