Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) announced results for the Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brown-field Sensors Testbed. IIC-member participants TE Connectivity and SAP SE, with supporting participants OPC Foundation and ifm, developed a solution that enables operators of decades old manufacturing facilities (brown-fields) to connect sensors to an IT system using existing infrastructure without affecting real-time operations.
The Solution
- The testbed substitutes the I/O module that connects sensors to PLCs in real-time automation systems with a Y-Gateway which re-uses the existing physical cabling
- The Y-Gateway supports the easy integration with IT systems by using a consistent OPC UA data model for IO-Link sensors which is currently being standardized by a joint working group of the IO-Link Community and the OPC Foundation.
- Data is transferred to the enterprise IT over OPC UA and further processed in either Manufacturing Data Objects in SAP Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence (SAP MII) or SAP Cloud Platform.
The testbed leads have published their results in an in-depth paper that can be downloaded at Smart Manufacturing Connectivity for Brown-field Sensors Testbed – Initial Deployment – Report after Completion of Phase I.