The AMT Technology Forum will include presentations on the importance of industry standards, such as MTConnect and QIF, as well as the emerging standard for the digital twin, ISO/DIS 23247.
It is critically important that standards be used in manufacturing. Today, for example, both the Siemens NX and AutoCAD formats are used for design, and these vendor-based software programs are not unified in a single digital twin format (nor are they compatible). The manufacturing industry will be much better served by digital engineering data that conforms to unified standards.
The two key standards relevant to manufacturing are MTConnect and Quality Information Framework (QIF). MTConnect is a technical standard that describes the process of making a product by providing a semantic vocabulary for manufacturing devices. QIF describes the as-built geometry of a product and supports the concept of the digital thread because it is XML-based and can be easily integrated with internet applications. If all manufacturers used these vendor-neutral standards, the resulting uniform data would make product and system development and integration more productive, cost-effective, and efficient.
A new standard currently in development is ISO/DIS 23247, a digital twin framework for manufacturing that enables synchronized digital twin models of products and processes on the shop floor so that applications can easily make digital measurements with less labor and latency.
To see the full agenda for the AMT Technology Forum, visit https://www.imts.com/spark/ExclusiveConferences/AMTTechForum.html.
