OPC DAY NORWAY 2025

Stefan Hoppe is the OPC Foundation President since end 2018 coordinating the OPC expansion into the Internet of Things & Industrie4.0.
Stefan has been the Global Vice President since 2014 and the President of the OPC Europe organization since 2010 being the catalyst for initiating liaisons with other industrial consortiums that has resulted in OPC working groups developing companion specifications for the organizations respective information models.

Stefan Hoppe studied electrical engineering at the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. Since 1995 he has worked for BECKHOFF Automation, starting as a software developer later as a lead Product Manager with focus on PC based Automation, connectivity and embedded software products.

You can reach Stefan under [email protected]

Michael Knossalla holds a Master of Engineering in Digital Technologies and works as a Product Manager for TwinCAT at Beckhoff Automation with a focus on Connectivity and IoT. He has been with Beckhoff since 2015 and, since 2019, has specialized in OPC UA-related products. Within the TwinCAT team, he is responsible for corresponding software functions.

Erich has worked in various engineering roles at Microsoft for over 22 years, initially in the Windows team and later in the Azure team. Throughout his career, he worked in the automotive and manufacturing verticals and is the founder of both the Windows and the Azure Industrial IoT teams, He is the inventor of many Industrial IoT products from Microsoft. More recently, he shifted his work to the support of open industrial standards in Microsoft products as well as commitments to open-source and consortia work in the Corporate Standards Group at Microsoft as Senior Director. He is the holder of various IoT-related patents and has a bachelor and two master’s degrees in computer science from Trinity College, Dublin.

Arno Schmetz studied computer science at the RWTH Aachen University with a focus on communication technologies. After this, he started his career at Fraunhofer IPT as an applied researcher, dealing with the digitalization of production machines and production systems. In this role, he was part of the team building up a new Fraunhofer institution, the later Fraunhofer FFB, eventually managing the digitalization of the battery production there, while pursuing multiple research projects in the domain of production digitalization and optimization. Currently, he is responsible for the digital infrastructure of the Battery Cell Factories at Fraunhofer FFB in Münster.

Thomas is Managing Director of QPRI & MTP4Pharma® – Intrinsic Plug & Operate Compliance. Degree in Electrical Engineering, focus on control systems engineering. Since 1991 working for 8 years as lead automation engineer in international large-scale chemical and petrochemical Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) projects. Since 1998 auditing of project risk management for large-scale chemical and petrochemical EPC projects globally. Active contributor to VDI, NAMUR, PROFIBUS e.V. (PNO), ISPE®, GAMP®, GAMP® D-A-CH, BioPhorum. Leading the global ISPE® GAMP® Special Interest Group “MTP in Pharma – Modular Plant Validation and Qualification”
Co-Lead of the upcoming ISPE® Pharma 4.0® GAMP® Good Practice Guide:
“Modular Plants according to MTP (Module Type Package) – Technical Implementation & Computerized System Validation“

Peter Lutz studied electrical engineering at the University of Stuttgart with a focus on computer science. He then worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Control Engineering of Machine Tools and Manufacturing Facilities (ISW) at the University of Stuttgart in the field of open control systems and industrial communication systems. Afterwards, he was appointed managing director of the Sercos user group, responsible for the coordination of worldwide activities for the automation bus Sercos and active in different national and international standardization committees. Since April 2019 he has been managing the OPC Foundation’s Field Level Communications (FLC) Initiative with the goal of extending OPC UA for field level communications in the factory and process industries.

Julius Pfrommer is the managing director of o6 Automation, the makers and stewards of the open62541 OPC UA SDK. An industrial engineer by training, Julius earning his PhD in computer science from KIT Karlsruhe. In a previous role at Fraunhofer IOSB he built and led the department for Cognitive Industrial Systems, focusing on industrial communication with OPC UA and the use of Artificial Intelligence in industry. Since 2013, Julius has been a co-founder of the open62541 project and is still responsible for its technical foundations. The o6 Automation GmbH continues this work and ensures the viability for commercial users outside of the research context.