Smart Transport Robot in the BMW Group Plant Regensburg
Hannover, Germany, April 3, 2019: Microsoft Corp. and the BMW Group have announced a community initiative to enable faster, more cost-effective innovation in the manufacturing sector.
The two have launched a common initiative to drive open Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) called ‘Open Manufacturing Platform’ (OMP). The latter is designed to break down barriers through the creation of an open technology framework and cross-industry community, said a press note by Microsoft.
The initiative is expected to support the development of smart factory solutions that will be shared by OMP participants across the automotive and broader manufacturing sectors. The goal of the Open Manufacturing Platform “is to significantly accelerate future industrial IoT developments, shorten time to value and drive production efficiencies while addressing common industrial challenges.”
Built on the Microsoft Azure industrial IoT cloud platform, the OMP is intended to provide community members with a reference architecture with open source components based on open industrial standards and an open data model. In addition to facilitating collaboration, this platform approach is designed to unlock and standardise data models that enable analytics and machine learning scenarios — data that has traditionally been managed in proprietary systems.
With currently over 3,000 machines, robots and autonomous transport systems connected with the BMW Group IoT platform, which is built on Microsoft Azure’s Cloud, IoT and AI capabilities, the BMW Group plans to contribute relevant initial use cases to the OMP community, said the release.
BMW claimed the OMP was the next evolution in the BMW Group’s and Microsoft’s long-standing technology partnership and mutual commitment to innovation and creating industry-wide opportunities for collective success.
Image Credit: Microsoft