As an integral part of machines and plants, among other applications, drive technology determines their costs, energy efficiency, optimization potential and the manufacturing quality of the products in many ways. Also, for Industrie 4.0 applications and processes, too, electrical and mechanical drive components, as data source and as an active part of intelligent applications, are an essential building block.

In mechanical and plant engineering, a wide variety of drive components from a wide range of manufacturers are used, each of which must be integrated into comprehensive, complex systems with their supported fieldbus systems, interfaces and device profiles.

OPC UA makes it possible, based on user requirements, to soften this complexity and enable simplified, interoperable communication for powertrain components. Thereby an OPC UA information model has the capability to cover a powertrains complete functionality from simple device representation like motor, contactors up to field level communication and cloud connectivity (see Figure 6).

This specification does not target real-time control applications for the powertrain but addresses user-related non-real-time use cases based on vertical communication from the field level up to the cloud (see Figure 7).

Figure 6– Additional Value of OPC UA by Eased Vertical Integration

Figure 7 – Vertical Communication and Clients

Asset Management:

The use case chosen for the first part of the specification is asset management. This first part provides detailed information of the main electrical and mechanical assets like part number, manufacturer name, serial number, firmware version. Further powertrain specific attributes of assets are specified (catalog data). With these data e.g. maintenance and replacement of assets is possible because the technician knows in advance which parts need to be changed and can be prepared. Assets are defined as orderable parts of the powertrain, e. g. a motor, a brake or a servo inverter/drive.

Asset management can be detailed further into the following sub-use cases:

Asset identification

Assembly of assets

Tracking of changes of assets

Inventory, check and search for assets

Providing of information for the selection of compatible powertrain assets

Order a bunch of assets

Health indicator for assets