Blog from February, 2026

As shared on these wiki-pages also, under the sections on "web-based resources", in 2016 a very useful overview of ISA-95 (legacy) and the many standards that may be mapped and are relevant for the smart factory "ecosystem" models was provided by NIST (2016): http://dx.doi.org/10.6028/NIST.IR.8107.

It has been said that there are already too many standards- are not enough solutions... so we should all be mindful of the balance of theory and practice.  Standards need to demonstrate their usefulness over time, and we all need to reflect on how our "communities of practice" may help focus the best possible use of standards, while managing innovation and real-world solutions as a part of our culture and everyday thinking. The emerging "smart grids" is a hot topic, and has been for a while, not least in Ukraine where the war and extra cold weather make most solutions time-critical and there is little time to reflect perhaps.
In 2020 NIST (again based on the US-perspective) published the "DRAFT NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 4.0",   including the text

"Interoperability depends on a consistent understanding of the language used to describe
capabilities and requirements for devices, systems, and actors. To facilitate this common
understanding of the language of the grid, NIST has applied a cyber-physical systems
ontology [39] to the smart grid."

That motivation also guides our use of standards for smart, sustainable manufacturing- with increasing use of microgrids to power the production.