PLCopen is an independent organisation providing efficiency in industrial automation based on the needs of users. PLCopen members have concentrated on technical specifications around IEC 61131-3, creating specifications and implementations in order to reduce cost in industrial engineering. The outcome for example is standardized libraries for different application fields, harmonized language conformity levels and engineering interfaces for exchange. Experts of the PLCopen members are organized in technical committees and together with end users define such open standards. PLCopen was founded in 1992 just after the world wide programming standard

IEC 61131-3 IEC 61131-3 is the third part (of 10) of the open international standard IEC 61131 for programmable logic controllers. It was first published in December 1993 by the IEC; the current (third) edition was published in February 2013. Part 3 of '' ...

was published. The controls market at that time was a very heterogeneous market with different types of programming methods for many different PLCs. The IEC 61131-3 is a standard defining the programming languages for PLCs, embedded controls, and industrial PCs, harmonizing applications independent from specific dialects, but still based on known methods such as the textual programming languages

Instruction List Instruction list (IL) is one of the 5 languages supported by the initial versions of IEC 61131-3 standard, and subsequently deprecated in the third edition. It is designed for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). It is a low level language an ...

, and Structured Text, the graphical programming languages

Function Block Diagram The Function Block Diagram (FBD) is a graphical language for programmable logic controller design, that can describe the function between input variables and output variables. A function is described as a set of elementary blocks. Input and out ...

and Ladder Diagram (a.k.a.

Ladder logic Ladder logic was originally a written method to document the design and construction of relay racks as used in manufacturing and process control. Each device in the relay rack would be represented by a symbol on the ladder diagram with connecti ...

), and the structuring tool

Sequential Function Chart Sequential function chart (SFC) is a visual programming language used for programmable logic controllers (PLCs). It is one of the five languages defined by IEC 61131-3 standard. The SFC standard is defined as ''Preparation of function charts for co ...

. Today, IEC 61131-3 is a highly accepted programming standard and many industrial software and hardware companies offer products based on this standard, which in the end are used in many different machinery and other application fields. Current topics are: * Motion control and * Safety functionality * XML data exchange format standardizing the base data of IEC projects in software systems, as used for instance by AutomationML * Benchmarking projects in order to have a good sophisticated benchmark standard. * And in the field of communication PLCopen has developed together with

OPC Foundation The OPC Foundation (Open Platform Communications, formerly Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control) is an industry consortium that creates and maintains standards for open connectivity of industrial automation devices and systems, such a ...

the mapping of the

software model to the OPC Unified Architecture information model.

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.plcopen.org/ Industrial automation Programmable logic controllers Organizations established in 1992