IIC track-and-trace testbed helps define new IIoT standard

The Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC) announced that its Track & Trace Testbed generated the requirements that helped define a new IIoT standard. Standards development organization Object Management Group (OMG).

OMG has been creating and maintaining IT standards for more than 30 years, used these requirements to define its Simple Electronic Notation for Sensor Reporting (SENSR) specification, which is now available as a beta standard.

The IIC Track & Trace Testbed creates visibility along the value chain by tracking geo-location, both indoor and outdoor, and usage of key assets. From this, a need emerged for sensor manufacturers to publish the required interpretation of the data that they produce via an Electronic Data Sheet (EDS).

“For our customers, e.g. large retailers, we have to provide data from transport-related assets, like trailers and containers to ensure transport SLAs are met and logistics chains can be optimized,” said Kai Hackbarth, Business Owner Industrial, Bosch.IO, and co-chair, IIC Over-the-Air Special-Interest-Group. “We needed a standard method of retrieving data to help reduce the complexity.”

The OMG SENSR specification enables manufacturers to precisely describe the output of their hardware so devices consuming the data can properly interpret it. SENSR also enables manufacturers to specify an EDS that provides a precise model of the data their equipment produces.

“With a standard to interpret data, both sensor manufacturers and end users can derive more actionable results from the information they are gathering,” said SAP VP, Industry Standards and Open Source, Erich Clauer.

“One of the primary drivers of our testbeds is to generate requirements for new standards and we’re delighted to see that OMG has used these requirments to create a new OMG IoT standard,” said IIC Executive Director Richard Soley, who is also chairman and CEO of OMG. “IIC testbeds use many industry standards and contribute to their improvements, but this is the first testbed to generate a set of requirements that have resulted in a new standard.”

Simple Electronic Notation for Sensor Reporting (SENSR)

The SENSR specification enables manufacturers to create a metamodel for describing available data provided by hardware sensors and an optional library of data types to facilitate data sharing. The SENSR specification can be found in the OMG specifications catalog. It is free of charge and currently available as a beta. The final 1.0 version of SENSR will be available later this year.