AutomationML e.V. officially founded 

April 2009, Eschborn, in order to give the standard a formal basis, seven companies and institutes founded the AutomationML Organization as industrial consortium on April 8th, 2009, at the site of Zühlke in Eschborn, Germany.
Under notarial supervision, representatives of ABB, Daimler, Fraunhofer IITB, NetAllied Systems, Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg, Siemens and Zühlke set the seal on the foundation declaration with their signatures. Mr. Anton Hirzle of Daimler was elected as Chairman of the Board, he will be supported by his Deputies Mr. Dr. Wolfgang Schlögl (Siemens) and Mr. Volker Miegel (ABB).
Goal of the consortium is the further establishment and development of AutomationML as open, cost free and standardized data exchange format for joint plant engineering in heterogeneous tool landscapes among companies.
With the foundation, the AutomationML Organization is now open for every interested company or institute, which wants to apply or further specify the format.

AutomationML welcomes new member Fraunhofer IITB

February 2009, Karlsruhe. The Fraunhofer-Institute for Information and Data Processing (IITB) is the newest member of the AutomationML consortium. The business division Monitoring and Control Systems (LTS) develops and delivers production monitoring and control systems which monitor automated plants e.g. the actual production of the C-Class within the Daimler AG. Before the real startup, these systems also work with data of the Digital Factory to reduce their startup time. The goal is to monitor virtual plants and evaluate their behavior in combination with each other. These are the competences the IITB introduces into AutomationML. The vision is a seamless integration of production monitoring and control systems into the virtual startup and a digital production release. This allows plants to be evaluated and optimized within the Digital Factory by software systems used during real-world operation.  

PLCopen XML schema version 2.0 now released

December 8, 2008 PLCopen published he XML schema and documentation in June 2005 as version 1.01. After that, feedback came in from companies starting to implement this specification, not only from Europe but also from Japan. With a new initiative called AutomationML we have come to a new phase. The companies Daimler, ABB, KUKA, Rockwell, Siemens, netAllied and Zühlke together with the University of Karlsruhe and the University of Magdeburg jointly define and standardize the Automation Markup Language (AutomationML™) as an intermediate format for the Digital Factory. For more information check www.automationML.org.

Microsoft and DS Solidworks enhance robot simulation with COLLADA

November 19, 2008 Users of Microsoft® Robotics Developer Studio 2008 will be able incorporate 3D CAD models designed in SolidWorks® software to simulate their operation more accurately. Developers will be able to correct any issues in their robotic application early on to maximizing the robots’ performance. The solution is possible because both applications support COLLADA for rendering 3D objects and for motion.

November 11, 2008 Bentley software solutions provider introduces MicroStation. The first single-point solution to publish geospatially located 2D/3D models complete with 2D GIS data directly to the Google Earth environment. Publish DGN and DWG models from your desktop to COLLADA and the Google Earth™ 2D/3D environment. Zoom to any place on the planet with the touch of a button.

Tuesday August 05th, 2008  COLLADA expands into new markets and widens adoption among leading content-creation software packages; Support for COLLADA 1.4 continues in parallel with COLLADA 1.5 development

Real interoperability? PLCopen revives TC6 - XML for better translation

April 8, 2008 PLCopen Technical Committee (TC6) - XML has opened up the IEC 61131-3 programming language development environments by specifying the XML schema, which provides an open interface to other software tools... PLCopen creates concepts to reduce the costs of industrial automation; savings are realized in areas such as engineering, training, operation and maintenance. With its members, PLCopen creates specifications to materialize the concepts. A new phase began with the initiative AutomationML. Daimler, ABB, Kuka, Rockwell, Siemens, netAllied, and Zühlke, together with the University of Karlsruhe and the University of Magdeburg, jointly define and standardize the Automation Markup Language (AutomationML) as an intermediate digital factory format...

Digital factory interface: XML control logic standard accepted by AutomationML

March 1, 2008 The XML standard, an open and non-proprietary software interface for the interchange of industrial and process control programs, is progressing and gaining acceptance, according to a spokesperson for PLCopen, the organization that administers it. The AutomationML (Automation Markup Language) organization has accepted the format for the description of control.