TE Connectivity joins the OPC Foundation

Sept. 26, 2016 – TE Connectivity (TE) has joined the OPC Foundation, a vendor-independent non-profit organization which aims to drive the development, maintenance and promotion of Openness Productivity Connectivity — Unified Architecture (OPC UA). This engagement reflects TE’s commitment to the concepts of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT)/Industry 4.0, says the company, describing IIoT and Industry 4.0 as the key elements of semantic interoperability and transmission integrity.

OPC UA is an industrial communication architecture for the secure, reliable, and semantic interoperability between sensors, field devices, controllers and applications at the shop-floor level (operational technology, OT) as well as between the OT and enterprise IT (Cloud) systems. OPC UA is standardized within the IEC 62541 series. Additional companion standards detail the requirements for specific systems.

TE’s Industrial business unit’s global leader standards and consortia Günter Feldmeier considers the engagement with the OPC Foundation as essential to drive TE’s IIoT/I4.0 strategy that aims at extending TE’s portfolio of connectivity solutions beyond passive infrastructure components towards OT/IT communication.

“OT/IT connectivity is the basis for the communication of an OT asset with its virtual representation implemented and maintained at IT level. OPC UA has been thoroughly analyzed by the Platform Industry 4.0 and confirmed as important technology to implement the ‘Communication Layer’ of the ’Reference Architecture Model Industry 4.0’ (RAMI4.0),” he said.

“Security is one of the main concerns regarding Industry 4.0. A recent analysis by the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) has confirmed OPC UA’s robustness here. Acknowledging this concern and reacting by integrating this technology in our products will preserve the confidence of our customers in our products,” added Dr. Michael Hilgner, manager consortia and standards.

— With files from TE Connectivity