OPC UA in Battery Production: The Importance of Digital Interoperability

Battery cell manufacturing is a highly complex and digital process involving machines and IT systems from a wide variety of manufacturers. In addition to the product itself, the manufacturing process also generates a vast amount of process data, which opens up new opportunities for optimizing operations, maintenance, and product quality. To fully harness this potential and ensure high efficiency, the machines and IT systems involved in the manufacturing process must work together seamlessly. Otherwise, this can lead to inefficient production processes or, in severe cases, even defects in cell quality.

As a platform-independent architecture and modeling language, OPC UA enables this seamless data flow in battery manufacturing.

This blog post explains what OPC UA is and what benefits OPC UA and the Companion Specifications offer. It also highlights how OPC UA can help ensure compliance with mandatory regulations and what advantages it offers battery manufacturers.

OPC UA (Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture) is a vendor-neutral communication framework for industry. To ensure that the process runs as efficiently as possible, all machines in the production chain must »speak a common language«. That means, being able to read and interpret the data being transmitted.

OPC UA serves as this »common language«. It determines not only how the data is transmitted but also what that data means. For example, if a machine transmits the value »90«, the receiving system knows, thanks to OPC UA, that this is a number and that it refers to the temperature in degrees Celsius.

The use of OPC UA is also platform-independent, enabling cross-vendor collaboration among various machines in production. A benefit that is particularly valuable for the integration and configuration of new machines. The initial integration of new machines that support OPC UA is faster and more efficient.

Thanks to the security mechanisms already integrated into OPC UA (e.g., encryption, authentication), secure data exchange is possible from the sensor all the way to the cloud.

As a platform-independent architecture and modeling language, OPC UA enables the industry’s transformation and further development toward Industry 4.0 in production and also serves as the foundation for comprehensive quality assurance.

To work as precisely and in as much detail as possible, industry-specific OPC UA Companion Specifications from the VDMA are required. Referring to the previous example, while a temperature sensor can transmit its value, the sensor’s context within the broader picture of the machine is missing. OPC UA Companion Specifications allow values to be mapped to processes and larger structures within the OPC UA framework. The receiving IT system then knows, for example, that the value represents the surface temperature of an electrode in a vacuum furnace. These industry-specific information models are defined in consortia involving many companies and associations.

The VDMA is the largest network organization for mechanical and plant engineering in Europe and represents the industry’s shared economic, technical, and scientific interests. Together with companies, the association develops OPC UA Companion Specifications to make the production process as precise and interoperable as possible. With OPC UA Companion Specifications, it is no longer necessary to program an individual interface for each machine so that it can communicate with the control system. Instead, machines can work together efficiently across different manufacturers.

By using OPC UA, manufacturers also comply with their regulatory obligations, such as the EU Data Regulation that took effect on January 11, 2024. This regulation aims to ensure fair data access and fair data use by manufacturers and retailers. And with the battery passport set to become mandatory in February of next year, the use of OPC UA also appears to be a sensible investment. This is because the rights and obligations for providers and users arising from these laws still present them with a major hurdle: interoperability. Standardized solutions are needed to ensure the interoperability of machines and IT systems and to increase efficiency. Interoperability is considered one of the most important pillars of digital transformation and is part of the Industry 4.0 Platform’s Vision 2030.

Another regulatory requirement stems from the EU Battery Regulation and the Battery Passport, which will take effect on February 18, 2027, as part of the regulation. It mandates complete and detailed traceability of the origin, raw materials, and carbon footprint of every battery with a capacity exceeding 2 kWh that enters the European market. In addition, the battery passport must include not only information from the battery’s production but also data generated during its use throughout its entire life cycle.

Manufacturers face heavy fines if they fail to comply with the data transparency requirements in the battery passport.

These regulatory requirements still pose a challenge for manufacturers. Although the DIN EN 18223:2026-09 standard, which defines interoperability for systems in the Digital Product Passport, is now in place, the exact data structure has not yet been specified. JWG Battery Solutions is working on this task by drawing on existing standards such as DIN EN 18223:2026-09 and DIN DKE 99100.

OPC UA, as an industry standard, offers a comprehensive solution to ensure traceability and product quality throughout a battery’s entire lifecycle.

Specifically, in relation to the manufacturing process, this means that production machinery transmits data via OPC UA to IIoT systems, which can then forward the data to cloud storage for securing relevant data, as well as to enterprise-level systems and analytics software.