OPC 40077

OPC 40077 focuses on data exchange between injec­tion mold­ing machines (IMM) and a high­er-level man­u­fac­tur­ing exe­cu­tion sys­tem (MES). The aim is to provide a vendor-inde­pend­ent inter­face for easi­er qual­ity assur­ance, order and data set management.

The fol­low­ing func­tion­al­it­ies are covered:
• Gen­er­al inform­a­tion about the IMM (man­u­fac­turer, mod­el, seri­al num­ber etc.), cur­rent con­fig­ur­a­tion and status of the IMM
• Job man­age­ment: Inform­a­tion on the jobs run­ning on the machine and the para­met­ers of the pro­duc­tion cycles and meth­ods to send and start jobs from the MES to the IMM
• Data­set man­age­ment: Allows data­sets to be trans­ferred between the IMM and MES in order to cre­ate a cent­ral repos­it­ory of data­sets. These include inform­a­tion on nom­in­al pro­cess para­met­ers related to the IMM but also to installed hand­ling systems.

OPC 40079

The inter­face for data exchange between injec­tion mold­ing machines and robots is described in OPC 40079. The tar­get of OPC 40079 is to provide a unique inter­face for IMM and robots inde­pend­ent of man­u­fac­turer to ensure compatibility.

The fol­low­ing func­tion­al­it­ies are covered:
• Real­time exchange of sig­nals via Pub­Sub to pre­vent mech­an­ic­al collisions
• Pos­i­tion sig­nals from the IMM: 1 mold, 2 eject­ors, 10 cores and 1 addi­tion­al axis
• Enabling sig­nals from the robot to the IMM to enable/ dis­able move­ments of the IMM depend­ing on the robot position
• Mul­tiple pub sub connections
• Part track­ing
• Sig­nals from the IMM rep­res­ent­ing the avail­ab­il­ity of parts in each mold
• Sig­nals from the robot on insert­ing and remov­ing parts
• Exchange of pro­duc­tion and qual­ity data­sets between machine and robot

The next ver­sions are going to add fur­ther facets which will cov­er unlim­ited equip­ment and oth­er top­ics for high­er level of integ­ra­tion on the pro­duc­tion floor.

The work­ing group on OPC 40084 devel­ops inform­a­tion mod­els for rub­ber and plastics extru­sion. The inten­tion is to ensure inter­op­er­ab­il­ity between the dif­fer­ent machines in an extru­sion line. In par­tic­u­lar, the mon­it­or­ing of the over­all pro­duc­tion and the man­age­ment of pro­duc­tion orders are pos­sible use cases.

OPC 40084–1 provides gen­er­al types that are used for extru­sion. Togeth­er with OPC 40083, which defines gen­er­al type defin­i­tions for the com­plete sec­tor of plastics and rub­ber machinery, it is the basis for all oth­er parts of OPC 40084.

OPC 40084–2 describes the inter­face between extru­sion lines and man­u­fac­tur­ing exe­cu­tion sys­tems (MES) for data exchange. MES are used for col­lect­ing the inform­a­tion gen­er­ated by extru­sion lines at a cent­ral point for easi­er qual­ity assur­ance and job and data­set man­age­ment. The tar­get of OPC 40084–2 is to provide a unique inter­face for extru­sion lines and MES from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers to ensure compatibility.

The fol­low­ing func­tion­al­it­ies are covered:
• Gen­er­al inform­a­tion about the extru­sion lines, cur­rent con­fig­ur­a­tion and status of the extruder line.
• Job man­age­ment
• Recipe man­age­ment includ­ing tem­per­at­ures, dos­ing volumes etc.

OPC 40084–3 describes the inter­face between extruders in an extru­sion line and the MES for data exchange. The tar­get of OPC 40084–3 is to provide a unique inter­face for extruders and MES from dif­fer­ent man­u­fac­tur­ers to ensure compatibility.

The fol­low­ing func­tion­al­it­ies are covered:
• Gen­er­al inform­a­tion about the extruder (man­u­fac­turer, mod­el, seri­al num­ber etc.), cur­rent con­fig­ur­a­tion and status of the extruder.
• Recipe man­age­ment: Extruders store their con­fig­ur­a­tions in so-called recipes. These include inform­a­tion on nom­in­al pro­cess para­met­ers (tem­per­at­ures, dos­ing volumes etc.).

OPC 40084–4 to OPC 40084–12 describe the data exchange inter­face for vari­ous com­pon­ents of an extru­sion line. The com­pon­ents include:
• Part 4: Haul-off
• Part 5: Melt pump
• Part 6: Fil­ter
• Part 7: Die
• Part 8: Pel­let­izer
• Part 9: Cut­ter
• Part 10: Cal­ib­rat­or
• Part 11: Cor­rug­at­or
• Part 12: Cal­ender

The inter­faces are used by
• MES for col­lect­ing the inform­a­tion gen­er­ated by extru­sion lines at a cent­ral point for easi­er qual­ity assur­ance and job and data­set management.
• Line con­trol­lers to mon­it­or and set pro­cess parameters.

These inter­faces enable seam­less com­mu­nic­a­tion both between peri­pher­al devices and pro­duc­tion machines (e.g., injec­tion mold­ing machines, extruders) and with high­er-level sys­tems such as MES or SCADA.

The spe­cific­a­tion is struc­tured into mul­tiple parts, each address­ing a spe­cif­ic device category:
• Part 1: Tem­per­at­ure Con­trol Devices
• Part 2: Hot Run­ner Devices
• Part 3: Liquid Sil­ic­one and Rub­ber Dos­ing Systems
• Part 4: Dos­ing Systems
• Part 5: Molds
• Part 6: Gran­u­late Dry­ing Devices

Each part sup­ports core func­tion­al­it­ies such as:
• Iden­ti­fic­a­tion and status monitoring
• Inform­a­tion and con­fig­ur­a­tion exchange
• Pro­cess value com­mu­nic­a­tion and control

The over­arch­ing goal is to enable a smart, OPC UA based work­cell where all com­pon­ents inter­act in a stand­ard­ized, inter­op­er­able way – regard­less of manufacturer.