IPC announces the release of IPC-2591 v1.3, Connected Factory Exchange (CFX), the plug-and-play industry standard for factory communication which sets the baseline for any company to achieve Industry 4.0. In addition to messaging upgrades for predictive maintenance, energy management and improved alignment with IPC-HERMES-9852, IPC-2591 v1.3 sets minimum required message sets by machine type.

By establishing minimum required message sets, the 2-17 Connected Factory Initiative Subcommittee has established clear distinctions for equipment suppliers to quantifiably demonstrate their IPC-CFX capabilities and for EMS and OEM companies to have assurances that the equipment they are buying meets their IPC-CFX needs.

Any equipment provider can demonstrate their devices’ mandatory IPC-CFX capabilities with a listing on the IPC-CFX-2591 Qualified Products List (QPL). The IPC-CFX-2591 QPL is a listing of equipment that has passed third-party audit for sending and receiving mandatory messages. Equipment providers can also demonstrate capabilities for additional optional messages for increased utilization of IPC-CFX by their EMS and OEM customers.

IPC-CFX offers tremendous value to the entire electronics manufacturing industry by providing a clean, recognizable, rich stream of data throughout an entire manufacturing enterprise. Unlike other industry standards for equipment communication, IPC-CFX provides a plug-and-play, clean, secure data pipeline, enabling any OEM and EMS company to quickly and easily get immediate value out of their IPC-CFX implementation.

David Bergman, vice president, IPC standards and technology stated, “With IPC-CFX, clean data streams are documented and can be verified and qualified. Industry now has a format that can be encrypted to deal with cybersecurity concerns.” Dave further commented, “Manufacturers no longer need to guess what messages are available, they will simply know. To put your company – no matter the size, on the path to Industry 4.0, go with IPC-CFX.”

To learn more about IPC-CFX, visit www.ipc-cfx.org. To purchase IPC-2591, version 1.3, visit www.shop.ipc.org.