OPC voices from the past 

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I thought I'd mention that I've run into a number of people who were part of the real first wave when OPC first got started in 1995 and before.  

There are probably a hundred other people that I should mention here, but for now here are a few of the great people that you should know that really were instrumental in the early development of OPC....

In November, I invited a surprise guest to our OPC Foundation Board of Directors meeting.  The surprise guest was my long-time friend and colleague Al Chisholm.  Al really was the visionary that was responsible for OPC to begin with.  Without Al there never would have been OPC.   Al was also one of the first board members of the OPC Foundation.  He's now involved in a new venture called LongWatch.  He's one of the few guys that I know that can recite the digits of PI.

In October, I ran into my good friend Jack Smith, from Plant Engineering magazine and AppliedAutomation.  Jack had been bantering about long before OPC got started about the need for a standard to address data/device communication, and really he had a lot of the first ideas that ultimately became OPC Data Access.  So if you're looking to really identify one of the first people who was a creative genius recognizing the opportunity, we have to give Jack credit for the idea.  Of course if you don't like OPC you can blame Jack for getting us into this mess to begin with.   Just kidding....   stay tune for visionary ideas in the future to come from Jack.

I also ran into our good friend Ken Hopkins.  Ken was leading the WinSem group when we first created the OPC task force.  Ken gave us a lot of great ideas that we were able to use in the first draft of the OPC data access specification.   He also was our mentor, and facilitated getting a lot of the original WinSem members to engage in development and adoption of the OPC technology.  Ken broke away from automation for awhile, but rumor has it he's back consulting in automation, and I look forward to working with Ken as we expand the horizon of opportunities for OPC UA deployment in other domains.

I also wanted to mention, that last June I had a great opportunity to reconnect with Neil Peterson, from Emerson Process.  Neil was one of the first developers of OPC data access as well, and of course his major contribution that he fought hard for was public groups.   It took us years to digest the importance of public groups.  In OPC UA, we have created views, which basically are modeled after Neil's original harebrained idea called public groups...  okay I had to have some fun here...  Neil got his MBA, and has now moved from the technical side of the fence to the marketing side of the fence.

 

 
Posted by Thomas Burke on 26-Mar-08
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Managing Editor, Plant Engineering magazine commented on Wednesday, 2-Apr-2008
Hello Tom, Thanks for the recognition in your Blog. I really like the attention. However, I’m not sure about “creative genius,” or “visionary ideas.” But I do enjoy pointing out that I did write about this in 1993 – nearly two years before the “official” birth of OPC. To set the record straight, I wrote an article titled “Integrating Weighing Systems with PLCs” in the December 1993 issue of Weighing & Measurement magazine. What follows are the final paragraphs, which are excerpted from that article with permission from the publisher: An automated future The trend is toward tighter integration, which affects not only PLC architecture, but control systems in general. This integration is between information systems and control systems; sequential process and motion control; intelligent plant devices and control systems; and the user interface and the control system. With the demand placed on factory personnel to obtain more real-time process information, it is apparent that the information generated within these control systems is becoming more accessible. After all, if the data exists at the process, why not use it instead of trying to manually recreate it at the end of the shift? As factories become more automated, the amount of immediately accessible data will greatly increase, making the division between process control and information systems seamless. {end of excerpt} Ok, so we’re not there yet. But we are a lot closer than we were in 1993. I’m not as naive as I was then. Being and editor in this industry has a way of making one cynical. But now that you and the folks at the OPC Foundation, along with supporting vendors and organizations have been doing the heavy lifting for more than a decade, there’s no doubt in my mind that we will get there. Jack Smith
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