Entering a new era for networked weighing technology

OPC UA using miOPC

The main aims of Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) are cost-efficient and flexible processes. OPC UA creates the necessary conditions for this and provides a common language base for all equipment and systems. Minebea Intec, the global manufacturer of industrial weighing and inspection technologies, was substantially involved with the definition of the OPC UA Companion Specification for Weighing Technology and is paving the way for the digitalisation of weighing technology with its software miOPC.

The extensive digitalisation of processes within industrial production has been a key goal for some time now in practically all branches of industry. Concepts such as Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) are intended to create the conditions to increase companies’ competitiveness and to equip them better for the future.

From sensors to production control systems, all the components, systems and equipment must speak a common language. The OPC Foundation, established in 1996, set itself the task of creating the foundations for this uninterrupted communication and has defined comprehensive specifications and standards over the past 20 years. For several years now the current iteration, known as the OPC Unified Architecture (OPC UA), has been the most important standard for platform-independent data exchange and is already widely used in industry.

The OPC UA Companion Specifications describes the variety of technical systems within the industry and defines the relevant special requirements that, for example, significantly differ in terms of sensors, control systems or robotics and which cannot be sufficiently covered in just one overarching standard. Recently, twelve world-leading manufactures in this sector have defined their own OPC UA Companion Specification for weighing technology, with the support of the German Mechanical Engineering Industry Association (VDMA) and the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Units (IWS) of the University of Stuttgart. As one of the world’s leading industrial weighing and inspection technology manufacturers, Minebea Intec was substantially involved in the development of the OPC UA Companion Specification for Weighing Technology (VDMA-Standard 40200: 2020-06).

OPC UA-specified weighing technology

Janine Nickel, Product Manager Weighing Electronics at Minebea Intec, explains how extensive and ambitious the definition of this OPC UA Companion Specification was: “Weighing processes are an integral part of many production steps, from supply and temporary storage of raw materials to the actual production of the goods through to the packaging and delivery of the finished products. Regardless of the respective industry branch, this usually involves a range of scales and weighing systems, which can be automated or manually operated, cover a broad range of weight classes and must meet the defined accuracies.” The definition should cover all common weighing systems in the industry if possible, from simple standard industrial scales to vehicle, silo and individual scales as well as laboratory balances through to continuously weighing checkweighers.

According to Janine Nickel, additional complications arose since, so far, each weighing system manufacturer had created their own protocols and used their own data structures, meaning the definition of variables already differed from manufacturer to manufacturer. “In the past this lead to high costs and long time frames for the user when integrating weighing systems. Thankfully, this unsatisfactory situation is now a thing of the past thanks to the OPC UA Companion Specification for Weighing Technology definition.”

Read more: https://www.minebea-intec.com/en/latest/press-releases/articles/entering-a-new-era-for-networked-weighing-technology-via-opc-ua-using-miopc