An Open Ecosystem for the Digital Transformation of Industrial Manufacturing Plants
At Hannover Messe 2019, European companies from the mechanical engineering, industrial automation and software industries founded the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance by signing a cooperation agreement. Founding members include BECKHOFF, Endress+Hauser, Hilscher, ifm, KUKA, MULTIVAC and SAP. The alliance is open to all companies. Further members include SAMSON as well as Balluff, GEBHARDT, Pepperl+Fuchs, SCHMIDTSCHE SCHACK and WIKA. The members of the alliance are committed to creating a standardized and open ecosystem for operating highly automated factories and plants, including logistics and services. The alliance is working to avoid proprietary stand-alone solutions to better enable digital transformation in European industry. The companies plan to work with future members to create what is known as an Open Industry 4.0 Framework on the basis of existing standards, such as IO-Link, OPC UA and RAMI 4.0.
Dr. Thorsten Pötter, Chief Digital Officer at SAMSON: "We see the Open Alliance as an important way to achieve added value for our customers through digitalization. SAM DIGITAL, the digital portfolio by SAMSON, is designed to harmonize optimally with the services of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance. With the alliance's balanced understanding of an open and secure architecture and the solutions created on this basis, the seamless integration of SAMSON Asset Management solutions is one of the next logical steps for us."
The founders and members of the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance pledged to provide customers with an open, standards-based and compatible offer for a product’s entire journey — from the object on the shop floor to after-sales service. Customers can select what they need from a set of modular, compatible and scalable solutions and services. These modules build on the core expertise of every founder and member of the alliance and represent a low-risk, manufacturer-independent option provided by existing and known suppliers in the discrete manufacturing and process engineering industries.
Further information on the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance is available at www.openindustry4.com.