Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/960726
60 I-CONNECT007 I SHOW & TELL MAGAZINE 2018 New at IPC: The Connected Factory Exchange and Innovation Awards by Stephen Las Marias I-CONNECT007 CFX Demo at IPC APEX EXPO 2018 For the first time in the industry, a common machine communications standard for the electronics assembly supply chain—manufac- turers, equipment suppliers, and solutions pro- viders—is a reality. At the recent IPC APEX EXPO in San Diego, California, the IPC Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) Showcase provided a technical demon- stration operating in real time with standard- ized machine data delivered from participating exhibitors through the cloud and onto visitors' cellphones. This showcase was supported by more than 25 vendors who, in the words of Aegis Software's Michael Ford, "have stepped up to create the world's first conversion of a show-floor into a digital factory shop-floor." According to Ford, this marks the industry's introduction to a true Industrial IoT standard. "Rather than being constrained by legacy data formats and content that machine engineer- ing teams created many years ago, which were all OK in their day before the modern digital needs of customers was conceived, IoT data is now available that can support the most ambi- tious of Industry 4.0 projects," he says. Aegis Software built the CFX toolkit that was fully donated to IPC and the industry without cost or license. In my recent interview, Nancy Jaster, the manager of design programs at IPC, said that she hoped to be able to demonstrate at IPC APEX EXPO how simple and easy it is to use the CFX messaging library and the transport mechanism AMQP 1.0—the building blocks of the CFX—to run the machines. She said IPC planned to release the CFX standard this year. In this Industry 4.0 vision, we are entering an era where new technologies transform the look of systems and processes of the modern