OMAC and OPC Foundation jointly released a PackML OPC UA Companion Specification in 2018 — a nearly two-year effort to standardize how PackML information should be modeled in OPC UA. Since its release, technical solution providers have started to create real implementations of the specification. PackML’s standardized machine data and benefits for packaging line integration combined with OPC UA’s agnostic approach for communicating data between systems make them a natural fit for solution providers, OEMs and end users.
To ensure that PackML and OPC UA work well together into the future, OMAC is beginning to look ahead to an update of the PackML OPC UA Companion Specification. A number of industry initiatives — recently completed or in progress — will impact the current PackML OPC UA companion specification. These include: