Frank O. Smith

Onboard the ‘Unified Architecture’ train

The OPC Foundation and four of its member companies officially announced the new Unified Architecture (OPC-UA) for data and information sharing between the plant floor and the enterprise at the ARC Advisory Group's annual forum in Boston in June. OPC-UA unifies all existing OPC specifications and leverages service-oriented architecture (SOA) based Web services technology as the communication me...

MES: From Device to Decision

Manufacturing management increasingly is looking upon the plant floor as a source of untapped wealth. Value there lies in the rich vein of data streaming through automation control systems—data to be mined to improve critical enterprise performance. That means boosting global operations and supply chain efficiency; coordinating collaboration among partners and suppliers; increasing market...