The OPC Foundation working groups (OPC-F WGs) are essential for the development of industry-leading specifications, technologies, certification and processes. The focus of these working groups is to provide the deliverables that are adopted by the OPC community into real-world products and services. Meetings are generally conducted online and occasionally in person.
Members have the opportunity to participate in working groups to ensure that their unique technology needs are considered by the industry-at-large. This approach allows the OPC Foundation, through the participation of its members as marketing and engineering resources, to move the standard forward to meet the technology challenges of tomorrow.
Working groups in which the OPC Foundation partners with other standards organizations are identified as collaborations.
To join a working group please send an email to the working group chair or one of the contacts.
Working Groups:
Unified Architecture Working Group (Contact: jim.luth_at_schneider-electric.com)
Responsible for defining, maintaining and improving the OPC UA specifications.
More information about the working group and its sub-groups can be found here: Unified Architecture Core – UA – OPC Foundation.
Compliance Working Group (Contact: Paul.hunkar_at_opcfoundation.org)
Responsible for the OPC Foundation Compliance program. This group analyzes OPC specifications to determine how products are to be tested for compliance. The group meets weekly to discuss test procedures, Compliance Lab standard operating procedures, and to continually update and enhance the Compliance Test Tools.
UA for Devices Working Group (Contact: matthias.damm_at_ascolab.com)
Responsible for defining, maintaining and improving the OPC UA for Devices (DI) specification. DI specifies a generic data model to represent devices.
More information can be found here: Unified Architecture Basic Devices Model – DI – OPC Foundation.
Field Level Communication Initiative (Contact: Peter.lutz_at_opcfoundation.org)
The initiative started in November 2018 to define an open, uniform, secure and standards-based IIoT communication solution between sensors, actuators, controllers and the cloud that meets all the requirements of industrial automation – factory automation but also process automation. For factory automation special requirements like deterministic communication, functional safety and motion are optional features.
More Information about 8 FLC technical working groups and the steering committee and 4 sub groups here: https://opcfoundation.org/flc/
Harmonization Working Group (Contact: Wolfgang.mahnke_at_ascolab.com)
In this working group members of various companion specification working groups and modelling experts meet to harmonize companion specifications models. The working group is responsible for the companion specification template and forms sub-teams to define common modelling constructs usable in a generic way.
