Case study of application of OPC technology in integration of laboratory equipment and software

This paper describes case study of application of OPC technology in the Laboratory of Integrated Manufacturing Systems, equipped with various industrial controllers, in order to acquire data for exemplary client application using this data. Communication between the automated equipment of the production system allows efficient and immediate acquisition of data on the state of adjoining equipment and production orders, which are the main postulate of Industry 4.0 methodology. Because of the variety of hardware and software in production systems, it seems necessary to use a standard method of communication, such as OPC, allowing client applications to acquire data in a standardized form. Article presents description of configuration of different laboratory stations controlled by PLCs, development of PLC applications, configuration of OPC server (KEPServerEX) with hardware drivers, testing of communication, and finally, example of usage of acquired data in OPC client application - HMI/SCADA iFIX.