-
Technology framework and open community to share smart factory
solutions across the automotive and manufacturing sectors to
significantly accelerate future Industrial IoT developments. -
Utilizing industrial use cases and sample code, community members
and partners will develop their own services and solutions while
maintaining control over their data and intellectual property. -
Built on the Microsoft Azure Industrial IoT cloud platform, the
Open Manufacturing Platform will provide a reference architecture
with open-sourced components based on open industrial standards as
well as an open data model. -
By the end of 2019 there will be an initial set of 4-6 partners
in place and a minimum of 15 use cases rolled out into select
production environments. -
Manufacturers and suppliers including companies from outside the
automotive industry are encouraged to join the community.
Hanover. Today, at Hannover Messe, Microsoft and the
BMW Group announced a new community initiative to enable faster, more
cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector. In
manufacturing today, production and profitability can be hindered by
complex, proprietary systems that create data silos and slow
productivity. The Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) is designed to
break down these barriers through the creation of an open technology
framework and cross-industry community. It is expected to support the
development of smart factory solutions that will be shared by OMP
participants across the automotive and broader manufacturing sectors.
The goal is to significantly accelerate future Industrial IoT
developments, shorten time to value and drive production efficiencies
while addressing common industrial challenges.
Built on the Microsoft Azure Industrial IoT cloud platform, the OMP
is intended to provide community members with a reference architecture
with open-sourced components based on open industrial standards as
well as an open data model. In addition to facilitating collaboration,
this platform approach unlocks and standardizes data models that
enable analytics and machine learning scenarios – data that has
traditionally been managed in proprietary systems. Utilizing
industrial use cases and sample code, community members and other
partners will be able to develop their own services and solutions
while maintaining control over their data.
“Microsoft is joining forces with the BMW Group to transform digital
production efficiency across the industry,” said Scott Guthrie,
Executive Vice-President, Microsoft Cloud and AI Group. “Our
commitment to building an open community will create new opportunities
for collaboration across the entire manufacturing value chain.”
With currently over 3,000 machines, robots and autonomous transport
systems connected with the BMW Group IoT Platform, which is built on
Microsoft Azure’s cloud, IoT and AI capabilities, the BMW Group plans
to contribute relevant initial use cases to the OMP community. One
example is the company’s use of their IoT platform for the second
generation of its autonomous transport systems in the BMW Group plant
in Regensburg, one of 30 production and assembly sites worldwide. This
has enabled the BMW Group to greatly simplify its logistics processes
via a central coordination of the transport system, creating greater
logistics efficiency. In the future, this and other use cases, such as
digital feedback loops, digital supply chain management and predictive
maintenance, will be made available, and in fact, developed further
within the OMP community, with the BMW Group retaining ownership of
its pre-existing business Intellectual Property (IP) and data.
“Mastering the complex task of producing individualized premium
products requires innovative IT and software solutions,” said Oliver
Zipse, member of the Board of Management of BMW AG, responsible for
production. “The interconnection of production sites and systems as
well as the secure integration of partners and suppliers are
particularly important. We have been relying on cloud services since
2016 and are consistently developing new approaches. With the Open
Manufacturing Platform as the next step, we want to make our solutions
available to other companies and jointly leverage potential in order
to secure our strong position in the market in the long term.”
The OMP is the next evolution in the BMW Group and Microsoft’s
long-standing technology partnership and mutual commitment to
innovation and creating industry-wide opportunities for collective
success. Through the OMP, community members will have greater
opportunities to unlock the potential of their data, allowing them to
build and integrate industrial solutions more quickly and securely and
in turn, benefit from contributing to and learning from other organizations.
The OMP will be designed to address common industrial challenges such
as machine connectivity and on-premises systems integration. This will
facilitate the reuse of software solutions among OEMs, suppliers and
other partners, significantly reducing implementation costs. For
example, a ROS-based robotics standard for autonomous transport
systems for production and logistics will be contributed to the OMP
for everyone to use. The OMP is compatible with the existing Industry
4.0 reference architecture, leveraging the industrial interoperability
standard OPC UA.
“This is very good news for the manufacturing industry,”
says Stefan Hoppe, President and CEO of the OPC Foundation. “The
use of open international industry standards such as OPC UA in the OMP
community enables manufacturers, machine builders and suppliers to
integrate their existing equipment and systems efficiently and
securely. For a long time, companies have promoted proprietary, closed
ecosystems – the OMP commitment to open development will shape
tomorrow’s manufacturing”.
The underlying platform will continue to evolve over time, along with
manufacturing requirements, to incorporate new innovations including
areas of analytics, artificial intelligence and digital feedback loops.
The broader OMP community is being formed now, with recruitment of
additional partners underway. The OMP Advisory Board is expected to be
in operation with an initial set of 4-6 partners in place and a
minimum of 15 use cases rolled out into select production environments
by the end of 2019. The two initial partners, Microsoft and the BMW
Group, encourage other manufacturers and suppliers including companies
from outside the automotive industry to join the community.