IPC International Community magazine an association member publication
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FA L L 2 0 2 5 C O M M U N I T Y M A G A Z I N E 2 3 When Tom Marktscheffel, direc- tor of product management soft- ware solutions at ASMPT, looks back on his nearly three decades in elec- tronics manufacturing, one word stands out: data. "Data is the new gold," he says. Without it, automation, artificial intelligence, and the factory of the future are impossible. With it, the industry can move from manual, error-prone processes to smart, connected systems that make real- time decisions. That vision lies at the heart of the Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) standard, which Tom has helped lead since its inception. Today, he chairs the 2-17: Connected Factory Initiative Subcom- mittee and 2-17A: IPC-CFX Standard Task Group and is an active member of the CFX A-team, the Plug & Players. These are working groups of vol- unteers shaping how factories communicate and operate worldwide. Besides his CFX activities, he chairs the 2-10: Electronic Product Data Descrip- tion Committee and co-chairs 2-17B: IPC-HER- MES-9852 Standard Task Group. Why CFX Matters Nearly a decade ago, the industry faced a commu- nication problem. Each equipment vendor had its own "standard" for data exchange—if it had one at all. Integrators and software providers spent countless hours writing translation layers to get machines to talk to each other. "It was like try- ing to build a global factory where every machine spoke a different language," Tom says. CFX changed that. By defining not only what data is communicated, but also how it is struc- tured and transmitted, the standard ensures that every machine can "speak the same language." Tom often explains it with a simple analogy: "When you call someone on your phone, you don't think about whether they're using an iPhone or Samsung or anything else. The protocol just works. That's what CFX does for factory equipment." Today, CFX provides structured, normalized data for everything from machine performance and process control to predictive maintenance and energy management. That consistency enables powerful applications—automation, analytics, and AI—that depend on clean, comparable data. A Global Effort, With Local Challenges CFX is a truly global initiative. Its working group spans the United States, Europe, and Asia, though time zones make collaboration challenging. "For Tom Marktscheffel used data to build CFX into a global factory standard By Sandy Gentry, Contributing Editor, Community Magazine