OMAC Users Group reports on standards efforts

Jerry Yen, advanced controls manager for General Motors' Powertrain Group, welcomed 105 attendees to the annual Open Modular Architecture Controls (OMAC) Users Group meeting, held here following ARC Advisory Group's Automation Strategies and Technologies Forum. Located at www.

By Staff March 1, 1999

Orlando, Fla. — Jerry Yen, advanced controls manager for General Motors’ Powertrain Group, welcomed 105 attendees to the annual Open Modular Architecture Controls (OMAC) Users Group meeting, held here following ARC Advisory Group’s Automation Strategies and Technologies Forum. Located at www.arcweb.com/omac, OMAC is a voluntary organization of users and vendors seeking to define standards for open automation architectures. Presentations included data on a similar Japan-based organization, JOP (Japan factory automation Open systems Promotion group), that is beginning to test a standard variety of Ethernet for control. Likewise, a European organization, OSACA (Open System Architecture for Controls within Automation systems), is working on a standard API manufacturers can use to interface control and HMI. OMAC’s Business Benefit working group reported that software able to calculate cost justifications will be available this spring. Another OMAC working group recently formed a Manufacturing Users Group with Microsoft to provide input for future developments of Microsoft Windows NT and CE for manufacturing.