Open Industry 4.0 Alliance Implementation Award

The OI4 Demonstrator is the winner!

We are very happy to announce that on Friday, December 3rd, the Open Industry 4.0 Demonstrator project at the Duurzaamheidsfabriek in Dordrecht was awarded the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance Implementation Award!

The OI4 Demonstrator uses the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance guidelines to demonstrate the feasibility of improved interoperability in process industry and shows how device data, diagnostics and prognostics can be communicated easily, open and efficiently through the automation pyramid – from field devices to cloud.

The project, supported by Innovation Quarter under the SMITZH program, is realized with OI4 members and non-member companies, specifically with: Pepperl&Fuchs, Flow Center of Excellence, Samson, M&M Software, Krohne, CodeWrights, da Vinci College, Duurzaamheidsfabriek, FOCUS-ON, and UReason. But also involves hardware of other OI4 members: Balluff, Hilscher and Endress+Hauser.

The partners in the OI4 demonstrator are realising the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance Development Guidelines to demonstrate the feasibility of improved interoperability in industry. Showing how device data, diagnostics and prognostics can be communicated effectively and efficiently parallel to the traditional automation pyramid. 

The reason for this project is simple. In recent years, practical steps into Industry 4.0 have shown a plethora of IoT platforms being utilized throughout the producing industries. The result of this heterogeneity on the platform level is an unmanageable variety in the solution requirements on the edge and field connectivity levels. Most actors in this field have realized that better interoperability of solutions is mandatory if Industry 4.0 is expected to have a continuing impact. 

Now the Open Industry 4.0 Alliance (OI4) aims to congregate leading industry partners to drive the digitization of the factory, plant and warehouse domains and ultimately create an ecosystem by linking Information Technology with Operational Technology, while bridging the divide between operators and manufacturers or OEMs. As such these are common business development tools, believed to generate new OI4 driven business for the project partners. 

The combined energy, experience and expertise of the project partners makes the right team to realize the demonstrator. The demonstrator enables partners to demonstrate the OI4 concept in a ‘real world’ process installation to their (prospective) clients in papers, workshops and dedicated demo’s.