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Exploring OPAS adoption, global engagement, and open architecture innovation in process automation.
At the ARC Industry Leadership Forum 2026, Craig Resnick spoke with Libanio Carlos de Souza about the company’s ongoing involvement in the OPAS ecosystem, its global outreach efforts, and emerging innovations in open process automation.
Nova SMAR has maintained a consistent presence at the ARC Forum, marking its fourth year exhibiting and its second year as a global sponsor. This sustained engagement reflects a broader strategy to expand visibility and strengthen collaboration across the industrial automation ecosystem. As Souza noted, “This is a very good partnership that we have with ARC… we are glad to be with ARC in many countries and spreading this news about OPAS technology.”
A key focus of the discussion was the company’s alignment with the Open Process Automation Standard (OPAS). According to Souza, the partnership with ARC provides a platform to engage with a wide cross-section of the market, including end users, partners, and the broader process automation community. This interaction is particularly important as OPAS adoption continues to gain traction globally.
Nova SMAR has also been actively promoting OPAS through a global roadshow program, conducting hands-on events across multiple cities worldwide. These sessions are designed to demonstrate the practical application of the technology and allow participants to directly experience its capabilities. Reflecting on the response, Souza said, “We have gone through dozens of cities all over the world… and we are impressed with the feedback we are getting from end users and the process automation community.”
The discussion also highlighted Nova SMAR’s involvement in the Open Process Automation Forum, which is marking its tenth year. Leadership within the organization continues to evolve, with company representatives contributing to efforts aimed at expanding awareness and adoption of the standard.
On the technology front, Nova SMAR introduced a new OPAS-enabled flow computer, illustrating how open architectures can support more flexible system design. By leveraging standardized signals that include timestamping, engineering units, and status information, the approach enables decoupling of measurement from control systems. As Souza explained, “This allows us to decouple the measurement from the control… and place the application in any hardware, connected through an OPAS signal to the measurement equipment.” This approach improves flexibility and supports more scalable system architectures.
Looking ahead, Souza emphasized that OPAS is increasingly being recognized by end users as a framework that addresses long-standing challenges in system integration and lifecycle management. “With OPAS, you’ll be able to introduce new technologies faster… without impacting plant operations,” he noted. This capability is expected to influence how industrial organizations approach system maintenance and modernization over the coming years.
The conversation also touched on geographic expansion, with interest in extending ARC engagement into regions such as Brazil, where industrial growth and digital transformation initiatives are gaining momentum.
As industrial organizations continue to navigate increasing complexity, evolving technologies, and the need for operational resilience, open and interoperable architectures such as OPAS are expected to play a central role in shaping the future of process automation.
Watch the full discussion on YouTube or here: