Veronika Schmid-Lutz was honoured by the trust and confidence placed in her by her fellow board members and noted that “being elected as the Chair of the OPC Foundation’s board is a great honour for me. My focus will be to strengthen and pursuing all aspects that make interoperability between devices, machines, and business systems as simple and as secure as possible.” Thomas J. Burke, President of the OPC Foundation commented on the importance of the Chair position and why Ms Schmid-Lutz was the right person to fill it, “Veronika clearly demonstrated her excellent leadership and business skills as a member of the OPC Foundation Board of Directors. Based on this I believe she is well suited to now serve as the Board’s Chair. With Veronika at the helm of the business, I look forward to see her facilitate and successfully drive the OPC Foundation vision into the next era.” Mr Burke concluded saying “It’s a great honour to have Veronika accept this important leadership role. We look forward to see her oversee communicating the importance of OPC UA into the IT world.”

Recognising the value of both the organisation and its deliverables, Veronika Schmid-Lutz emphasised the importance of OPC UA by noting: “Easy interoperability is an important enabler for intelligent systems leveraging new technologies in software and hardware. SAP strongly supports OPC UA as it simplifies and accelerates information exchange between heterogeneous systems and devices which is why Platform Industrie 4.0 has made OPC-UA a key component of its RAMI architecture. The board looks forward to continue enhancing the value of both the organisation and its deliverables.”