IPC - Connected Factory Initiative

IPC-CFX is an electronics manufacturing industry developed standard forming the foundation/backbone of Industry 4.0 Applications.  IPC-CFX simplifies and standardizes machine to machine communication while also facilitating machine to business/business to machine solutions.

IPC-CFX can simply be described as a standard providing a purpose, working components, benefits, with several applications and sustainability.

With the introduction of CFX to the electronics industry questions have been raised concerning middleware, what are JSON and AMQP, how does CFX compare to other solutions, what is meant by plug-and-play and several others. The IPC Connected Factory Exchange Subcommittee is providing an updated CFX FAQ page to answer these questions.

Purpose of IPC-CFX:

• World-wide Industrial IoT communication standard for assembly manufacturing
• The enabler of Industry 4.0, Smart Factory and Digital Factory solutions

Working Components of IPC-CFX:

• Secure, omni-directional, AMQP v1.0 transportation protocol
• JSON data encoding
• Defined data content and structure of messages, across all manufacturing topics

Benefits of IPC-CFX:

• Everyone has just one interface for complete visibility, reducing costs and complexity
• Machine vendors can further optimize machine operation based on wider knowledge
• IT solutions work in a “plug and play” environment

Applications:

• Machine to machine communication
• Machine data to factory exchange
• Factory data to machine exchange
• Transactional events, such as logistics, work-orders etc.

How Does CFX Compare to Other Machine-to-Machine Communication Systems?

• CFX is a true “plug and play” communication system, easily implemented for all manufacturers.

Sustainability:

• Enhanced business opportunity and cost saving for all parties
• Supports all Industry 4.0, Smart factory and digital factory applications
• Additional CFX specification can be added as required