Ernst Esslinger is Director Methods/Tools for the design of processes for handling global plant projects at the Homag Group. He is also Chairman of the Joint Working Group Woodworking Machinery and was recently elected to the board of the Industrial Digital Twin organization.

© Homag

Ernst Esslinger studied mechanical engineering at the University of Stuttgart. He has been working for the Homag Group since 1985, initially in various management positions in the research and development area and subsequently he was responsible for the control technology handling of plant projects worldwide. Currently, as Director Methods / Tools, he is responsible for the design of processes for handling global plant projects and is involved in the implementation of Industry 4.0 projects. As Chairman, he heads the Joint Working Group Woodworking Machinery and was recently elected to the board of the Industrial Digital Twin Organization.

Andreas Faath is VDMA Head of Interoperability and responsible for the VDMA's OPC UA activities.

© VDMA

Andreas Faath, VDMA Head of Interoperability and responsible for the VDMA's OPC UA activities, in which more than 600 companies worldwide are involved. This makes him an important contact for OPC UA standardization in the international mechanical and plant engineering industry. Through close cooperation with numerous mechanical and plant engineering companies, it represents their wishes and requirements for OPC UA.

Thanks to the VDMA's strong international political networks, Mr. Faath has succeeded in bringing the activities of OPC UA into global politics. Before joining the VDMA, Mr. Faath studied mechanical and plant engineering and was a research assistant at the Technical University of Darmstadt with a focus on digitalization and IIOT.
He then worked in research and development for process optimization and digitalization in the field of vehicle testing at General Motors.

Stefan Hoppe is President of the OPC Foundation.

© OPC Foundation

Stefan Hoppe has been President of the OPC Foundation since the end of 2018 and coordinates the OPC expansion into the Internet of Things & Industry 4.0.

Hoppe has been Global Vice President since 2014 and President of the OPC Europe organization since 2010. As an initiator of cooperation with other industry consortia, OPC working groups have been established to develop specifications for the organization's respective information models. For example, he was appointed Chairman of the joint PLCopen & OPC Foundation working group in 2008, which developed a recognized specification published in 2010.

Stefan Hoppe studied electrical engineering at TU Dortmund University.

From 1995 he worked for Beckhoff Automation, first as a software developer and later as Senior Product Manager for the TwinCAT automation software with a focus on the smallest embedded devices and their connectivity.

Dr. Andreas Wohlfeld is Lead Architect Smart Factory at Trumpf and spokesman for the VDMA's Industrial Advisory Board on Interoperability.

© Trump

Dr. Andreas Wohlfeld heads the modelling group of the Joint Working Group OPC UA for Machine Tools and represents it in the Joint Working Group OPC UA for Machinery. He is the spokesperson for the VDMA's Interoperability Industry Advisory Board, from which the initiative for the OPC UA for Machinery working group also emerged.

Andreas Wohlfeld studied technical cybernetics at the University of Stuttgart, where he later completed his doctorate at the Institute for Control Engineering (ISW).

Since 2010, he has been working at Trumpf Machine Tools in various roles in the field of control and interface architecture, where he is currently the Lead Architect Production Solutions / Smart Factories, driving the development and standardization of interfaces with a focus on OPC UA in the Industry 4.0 environment.
He represents Trumpf in the OPC Foundation and is a member of various working groups with a focus on harmonization.