The OPC Foundation reported Feb. 6 that it’s proud to welcome Procter & Gamble as its 900th member. P&G uses digital technologies, including OPC Unified Architecture (UA) protocol, in its “constructive disruption” concept and Integrated Work System (IWS) operational excellence program. IWS is employed at more than 100 sites worldwide and in more than 450 non-compete manufacturing operations.
P&G is building on these successes by bringing artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to its processing equipment to continue advancing its heritage of operational excellence. It’s also using open standards to deploy technologies at scale, and OPC UA is part of the industrial communication framework in P&G’s automation systems, providing secure connectivity from sensor to cloud.
“It’s critically important to P&G to have an innovation and operational ecosystem that can enable the speed-to-value-creation and sustained operational excellence expected from smart manufacturing,” says Jeff Kent, VP of smart platforms technology and innovation P&G. “We’re collaborating with automation-industry partners and the OPC Foundation to drive scalable, repeatable and resilient intelligent operational technology across our worldwide operations. Smart manufacturing technology architectures, IT/OT network communications, data engineering and data modeling, S/W applications and AI/ML algorithms all depend on the proven, progressive and practical adoption of the specifications we’re adopting with our industry partners.”
Michael Clark, director of OPC Foundation North America, added that, “Procter & Gamble has successfully completed many phases of innovation since its inception almost 200 years ago and today is no exception. P&G continues to show its leadership by embracing the global OPC UA standard, and we couldn’t be more pleased to welcome it as the 900th member of the OPC Foundation—joining our collaborative digital communication ecosystem, comprised of the most forward-thinking companies on the planet.”
