New special area - Connected Machines at glasstec: How machines establish cross-vendor communication

In industrial glass production data is generated in many places and by different systems. To make this data usable across individual machines and process steps, systems, controls and software have to exchange information with each other even though they come from different manufacturers.

The special area Connected Machines realised jointly with the VDMA at glasstec 2026 uses concrete demonstrators to visualise how open standards and common data models can support such cross-vendor connections.

An important basis for this is OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture). This is an open standard for exchanging information in industrial automation. Put simply, OPC UA creates common rules for machines and systems to safely swop data, independently of manufacturer or platform.

Here it is not only vital that data move from A to B. Different systems also have to understand what each data item means. To this end, standardised information models can be defined via OPC UA. They provide a common context for data – therefore creating a basis for machines to not only connect with each other but also interpret information uniformly.

In glass processing, for instance, this becomes a concrete asset for production orders. When glass progresses through several processing stages, the required information must be available to all involved systems in an unambiguous format.

For flat glass processing there has been a standardised job-target definition model available since 2025: VDMA 24124. It is designed to enable machine-independent, scalable exchange of production data.

This makes it clear why common standards are not only required for data transmission: they also decide on the degree to which different machines can be integrated into a consistent digital manufacturing process.  

At the special area this abstract interface issue becomes an illustrative trade fair exhibit. A multi-vendor demo wall installed by the OPC Foundation shows how components of different automation vendors interact. The OPC Foundation is the international industry organisation behind the OPC standards and develops and maintains them jointly with its members.