For Immediate Release
OPC Foundation Appoints Shinji Oda, Yokogawa to OPC Foundation Board of Directors
Scottsdale, AZ, April 25th , 2016 – Shinji Oda, General manager, Technology Marketing of Yokogawa Electric Corporation, has been appointed to the Board of Directors of the OPC Foundation.
Yokogawa has provided the necessary leadership of the OPC Japan organization and has been on the OPC Foundation Board of Directors since the early 2000’s.
“It’s very exciting to have Shinji Oda join the OPC Foundation Board of Directors. Mr. Oda was one of the founding members on the original OPC Foundation Technical Steering Committee, and has been active in many of the OPC Foundation technical and marketing initiatives.
Mr. Oda has a solid foundation of knowledge and history of OPC and he will contribute significantly to the future growth of OPC UA as we expand adoption and become the solution for the Internet of Everything” says Thomas J. Burke, OPC Foundation President & Executive Director.
Yokogawa has been a major supporter of the OPC technology portfolio inclusive of OPC UA, inclusive of active participation in the OPC Foundation technology working groups, and active representation on the OPC Foundation Technical Advisory Council.
Mr. Oda is replacing Nobuaki Konishi, Yokogawa on the OPC Foundation Board of Directors. The responsibility of Mr. Oda includes being the chairman of the OPC Foundation Japan organization.
The excellent leadership of Nobuaki Konishi for the OPC Foundation Japan organization that is now transitioning to Mr. Oda has resulted in tremendous stability and growth of membership, adoption and certification from the Japanese community.
“The OPC Foundation wishes to acknowledge and thank Nobuaki Konishi for his great contributions to the success and continued growth of the OPC Foundation”, adds Thomas J. Burke.
It also reflects the importance of Yokogawa and all of Japan, and the importance of multivendor multiplatform secure reliable interoperability and how it is shaping and extending OPC UA as the accepted standard for Internet of Things (IoT) communications.
Thomas J. Burke, President and Executive Director of the OPC Foundation, pointed out that “the OPC Foundation Board of Directors represents the world’s most prominent global industrial automation suppliers. The commitment of the board members, as well as their contributions to OPC technology, are a major reason for the success of the OPC Foundation.
“Yokogawa is well recognized in industrial automation and has been actively participating and sponsoring many OPC Foundation-sanctioned events, presenting a great success story showing clearly demonstrating the OPC UA value proposition of information integration and interoperability,” added Burke. “Customers benefit from the easy, direct and secured communications that OPC UA enables, from DCS systems to the top floor world of IT.”
“I am very proud and excited by this appointment to the Board of Directors of the leading technology organization in the automation domain. I have been working with OPC technology for a long time, and have been involved from the very beginning in the development of the OPC UA specification. I will work very closely with the OPC Foundation Japan. Yokogawa plays a leading role in this organization, which has more than 40 members and has been very active in promoting OPC technology in the Japanese market through activities such as the hosting of an annual interoperability workshops “, says Shinji Oda, Yokogawa.
“The use of OPC for connectivity of process control applications goes back to the beginning of the OPC Foundation, and was a primary technology consideration for the design of OPC UA”, according to Craig Resnick, Vice President, ARC Advisory Group. “Yokogawa has been one of the major global suppliers to the process control industry throughout the history of the OPC Foundation, as has provided much guidance and direction towards the development of OPC UA for process control, plant floor to enterprise connectivity, and IIoT applications. ARC expects the OPC Foundation and its members will all benefit from Mr. Oda’s participation on an already strong line-up of board of directors.”
Shinji Oda is General manager, Technology Marketing of Yokogawa Electric Corporation in Tokyo, Japan. He is responsible for Yokogawa’s strategy in international standardization and consortia activities.
Mr. Oda joined Yokogawa in 1986 and played key role in the development of successive Yokogawa DCS, CENTUM, such as the project leader of CENTUM CS 3000 from 1999 to 2002. He also has international experience. From 2002 to 2005 he served as the head of Development Center in US and from 2009 to 2014 he served as the head of Development Center in Singapore. He has been in his current position since April 2014.
Mr. Oda has Bachelor degree of engineering from University of Tokyo. He is a delegate from Japan in IEC/SMB/SG8 Industry 4.0 – Smart Manufacturing and a member of IEC/TC65 Japan National Committee Advisory Group.
In addition to Mr. Oda and Mr. Burke, the OPC Foundation Board includes Russ Agrusa, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ICONICS; Matthias Damm, President of Ascolab; Stefan Hoppe of Beckhoff Automation; Thomas Hahn, Chief Software Expert at Siemens AG; Matt Vasey Director of IoT Business Development, Microsoft; Veronika Schmid-Lutz, Chief Product Owner for manufacturing products at SAP SE and Ziad Kaakani, Global System Engineering and Architecture, Honeywell Process Solutions.
About The OPC Foundation Since 1996, the OPC Foundation has facilitated the development and adoption of the OPC information exchange standards. As both advocate and custodian of these specifications, the Foundation’s mission is to help industry vendors, end-users, and software developers maintain interoperability in their manufacturing and automation assets. The OPC Foundation is dedicated to providing the best specifications, technology, process and certification to achieve multivendor, multiplatform, secure, reliable interoperability for moving data and information from the embedded world to the enterprise cloud. The organization serves over 470 members worldwide in the Industrial Automation, IT, IoT, IIoT, M2M, Industrie 4.0, Building Automation, machine tools, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, and Smart Energy sectors. For more information about the OPC Foundation, please visit https://opcfoundation.org.
Media contact:
Thomas J. Burke
OPC Foundation President & Executive Director
Thomas.Burke@opcfoundation.org
