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In 2019, EUROMAP and the OPC Foundation have established the Joint Working Group "OPC UA Plastics and Rubber Machinery". The aim of the international group is to develop worldwide standardized interfaces for plastics and rubber machines based on OPC UA. The existing EUROMAP recommendations EUROMAP 77 (data exchange between injection moulding machines and MES), 82.1 (temperature control devices) and 83 (general definitions) have now been published under the neutral umbrella of the OPC Foundation as OPC 40077, 40082-1 and 40083. The most important change is that the so-called namespace, which defines the globally unique identification of an interface standard, has been transferred from euromap.org to opcfoundation.org. This paves the way for the adoption of the standard in other regions such as Asia and America. Even if the standard is translated into national adoptions and, if necessary, assigned a different local number, the uniform namespace ensures that the data to be exchanged is uniform and is recognized by the connected devices.
In addition, a new series for extrusion, OPC 40084, has been published. It considers the extrusion line as a whole with its production status and order management as well as the individual components with status and process values. Currently the different parts cover extruders, haul-offs, melt pumps, filters, dies, pelletizing, cutter, calibration and corrugators. Further parts for components such as calenders, splitting and winding will follow. The use of standardized digital data exchange facilitates the commissioning and operation of the extrusion line.
The published OPC UA specifications for plastics and rubber machines can be downloaded from the websites of the OPC Foundation, EUROMAP and VDMA: