OPC UA for Machinery: Enabling Seam­less Inter­op­er­ab­il­ity Across the Mech­an­ic­al Engin­eer­ing Sector

In today’s rap­idly evolving indus­tri­al land­scape, inter­op­er­ab­il­ity is the corner­stone of suc­cess­ful digit­al trans­form­a­tion. For the mech­an­ic­al engin­eer­ing industry—where machines, com­pon­ents, and sys­tems from count­less man­u­fac­tur­ers must work together—standardized com­mu­nic­a­tion is essen­tial. This is where OPC UA for Machinery comes into play.

What is OPC UA for Machinery?

OPC UA for Machinery (OPC 40001 series) is a uni­ver­sal, cross-domain inform­a­tion mod­el developed to serve the entire machine build­ing industry. It provides a set of stand­ard­ized build­ing blocks that enable con­sist­ent data exchange across dif­fer­ent types of machines and com­pon­ents, regard­less of man­u­fac­turer or application.

Developed under the umbrella of VDMA in col­lab­or­a­tion with the OPC Found­a­tion, this spe­cific­a­tion is the res­ult of a joint effort by lead­ing tech­no­logy groups across vari­ous sec­tors. It is one of the first OPC UA Com­pan­ion Spe­cific­a­tions to be fully endorsed by the umati community.

Mod­u­lar Structure

The spe­cific­a­tion is struc­tured into mul­tiple parts, each address­ing spe­cif­ic aspects of machine com­mu­nic­a­tion. The indi­vidu­al parts and included build­ing blocks can be used by domain-spe­cif­ic spe­cific­a­tions or as stan­dalone mod­el as required.

Part 1 — Basic Build­ing Blocks:

• Machine Iden­ti­fic­a­tion and Nameplate
• Find­ing all Machines in a Server
• Com­pon­ent Iden­ti­fic­a­tion and Nameplate
• Find­ing all Com­pon­ents of a Machine
• Machinery State
• Oper­a­tion Counters
• Aggreg­a­tion of Mon­it­or­ing Data
• Aggreg­a­tion and Iden­ti­fic­a­tion of Equipment
• Aggreg­a­tion of Notifications

Part 2 — Pro­cess Values

• Mech­an­ism to rep­res­ent pro­cess values

Part 3 — Job Management

• Mon­it­or job orders
• Con­trol job orders

Part 4 — Energy Management

• Mon­it­or energy con­sump­tion of dif­fer­ent media

Part 101 — Res­ult Transfer

• Man­age com­plex meas­ure­ment results

Har­mon­ized Inter­faces based on OPC UA for Machinery

The first prac­tic­al imple­ment­a­tion is shown in the umati show­case with the umati.app. To see how this is done, vis­it showcase.umati.org

OPC 40001–1 / VDMA 40001–1 was developed under the umbrella of VDMA, the Mech­an­ic­al Engin­eer­ing Industry Asso­ci­ation, in a Joint Work­ing Group with the OPC Found­a­tion. It fol­lowed an ini­ti­at­ive by a num­ber of tech­no­logy-spe­cif­ic first-mover stand­ard­iz­a­tion groups from dif­fer­ent sec­tors of the machine build­ing industries.

Why It Matters

The OPC UA for Machinery spe­cific­a­tion addresses a fun­da­ment­al chal­lenge in mech­an­ic­al engin­eer­ing: the lack of a com­mon lan­guage for machines to com­mu­nic­ate. By defin­ing har­mon­ized inter­faces, it enables cross sec­tor inter­op­er­ab­il­ity — allow­ing machines from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers to be integ­rated quickly and reli­ably into pro­duc­tion environments.

Bene­fits for the Industry

• Cross-industry com­pat­ib­il­ity: Wheth­er it’s robot­ics, plastics, wood­work­ing, or metal­work­ing, OPC UA for Machinery provides a shared frame­work that sup­ports inter­op­er­ab­il­ity across domains.
• Reduced integ­ra­tion costs: Stand­ard­ized inter­faces elim­in­ate the need for cus­tom solu­tions, sav­ing time and resources.
• Improved trans­par­ency and mon­it­or­ing: Uni­fied data mod­els make it easi­er to track machine per­form­ance, cal­cu­late KPIs, and optim­ize operations.
• Future-proof­ing: As the spe­cific­a­tion evolves, it con­tin­ues to incor­por­ate new use cases and tech­no­lo­gies, ensur­ing long-term relevance.

Real-World Imple­ment­a­tion

The prac­tic­al bene­fits of OPC UA for Machinery are already being demon­strated through the umati show­case and the umati.app, where real machines com­mu­nic­ate live using the spe­cific­a­tion. This hands-on approach high­lights the value of open, stand­ard­ized com­mu­nic­a­tion in real pro­duc­tion settings.