MUNICH (Nov. 2, 2020) — Red Hat, Inc., the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that it has joined the Open Manufacturing Platform (OMP) initiative. With this participation, Red Hat will help drive innovation in production and throughout the value chain via open standards for interoperability, platform diagnostic solutions and data silo resolution. The aim is to achieve consistent standardization as the basis for Industry 4.0 and digitization in production.
Industrial production is subject to numerous challenges. In particular, data silos inhibit the optimization of processes and make it difficult to scale new technologies and business models. Moreover, heterogeneous information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems prevent the smooth exchange of data. Digital pilots and proof-of-concepts can therefore not always be scaled and transferred to enterprise-wide operation, despite the use of state-of-the-art technologies.
This means that enterprises are not always able to achieve the necessary flexibility in the market, the importance of which is increasing even further as a result of crises such as the current pandemic – especially when there is a lack of in-house personnel resources and know-how. The members of the Open Manufacturing Platform want to eliminate these challenges and the inefficiencies in the entire value chain.
Creating open standards for IoT connectivity
The seamless integration of systems and machines in the production line and the standardization of interfaces between IT and OT are essential for optimizing production – as is the connection of production facilities to the cloud. With its deep commitment to open source, its extensive industry expertise and its enterprise-ready open source solutions, Red Hat, as a new OMP member, intends to play a key role in achieving the goals of the initiative.
Among others, Red Hat will actively participate in the working groups "IoT Connectivity" and "IoT Reference Architecture". The working groups develop standards and application recommendations based on existing protocols and technologies and a common data model in areas such as predictive maintenance, warehouse management, supply chain, quality assurance or asset management.
The "IoT Connectivity" working group will support the industry in connecting IoT devices and machines to the cloud to help digitize production lines and improve cloud-based IoT applications. The "IoT Reference Architecture" working group will define plans, diagrams, white papers and architecture descriptions to show how different technological components fit together to provide a solution that includes existing open reference architectures from across the industry.
Connecting the industry in an open ecosystem
The implementation of open standards can create a continuous open ecosystem for plant and machine manufacturers that comprises the entire production supply chain: from suppliers and partners to traditional data centers and production lines, to Factory Edge and the hybrid cloud.
This allows manufacturing businesses to more easily integrate state-of-the-art technology and optimize processes using big data, artificial intelligence and analytics, DevOps or cloud computing in order to make faster and better decisions, and gain agility and efficiency.
OMP was founded in 2019 by the BMW Group and Microsoft as Steering Members and has grown around major industry leaders such as Anheuser-Busch InBev, Bosch, ZF Friedrichshafen, Siemens Healthineers, PWC, Accenture and others. The OMP initiative was developed under the umbrella of the Joint Development Foundation (JDF), which is part of the Linux Foundation. JDF supports OMP with infrastructure and an organizational framework for the development of technical specifications and support for open industry standards.
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Red Hat is the world's leading provider of enterprise open source software solutions, using a community-powered approach to deliver reliable and high-performing Linux, hybrid cloud, container, and Kubernetes technologies. Red Hat helps customers integrate new and existing IT applications, develop cloud-native applications, standardize on our industry-leading operating system, and automate, secure, and manage complex environments. Award-winning support, training, and consulting services make Red Hat a trusted adviser to the Fortune 500. As a strategic partner to cloud providers, system integrators, application vendors, customers, and open source communities, Red Hat can help organizations prepare for the digital future.
