OPC Day Finland 2025, 10.12.2025

@ AWS Finland Helsinki, Mikonkatu 7

OPC Day Finland is gathering the best experts from the world to discuss the technology and use cases - from sensors to rockets in space! By arranging this yearly event, we want to help everyone working in manufacturing, OT and IT, to apply this standard for smarter solutions in all communication.

 

PROGRAMME

08.30 
Registration

9.00
Opening          
Jouni Aro, Finnish Society of Automation

9.10    

             

Keynote: The Acceleration of Digital Manufacturing with Smart Machines and Software-Defined Factories                   
Steve Blackwell, AWS
Steve Blackwell leads the Product Engineering & Services Center of Excellence at Amazon Web Services with over 25 years of global experience in the manufacturing industry, with roles across engineering, operations, and IT. In his role at AWS, he owns the business and technical strategies, strategic partners, and solutions for the product engineering & development, and smart products & services strategic domains working with customers, partners, and the AWS Service Teams. Steve has worked in the Aerospace, Automotive, CPG, High-Tech, Pharmaceutical, and Industrial segments, a trained 6-Sigma and Lean practitioner. He started his career as a mechanical engineer after earning a Bachelor of Engineering degree and then later a Master’s degree in Information Technology.

9.40 

                

Keynote: OPC Foundation and the Trends in Digitalisation  
Stefan Hoppe, OPC Foundation
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.

10.10               
Coffee Break, Meet the Sponsors                         

10.40   

            

OPC UA Cloud Initiative including Catena-X and Digital Product Passport                    
Erich Barnstedt, Microsoft
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.

11.05   

            

OPC UA and Battery Passport                         
Arno Schmetz, Fraunhofer FFB
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.

11.30
Meet the sponsors                  

11.40               
Lunch Break, Meet the Sponsors                         

12.40     
 
         

MTP in the Pharmaceutical Industry          
Thomas Makait, MTP4Pharma
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“

13.00  

             

OPC UA Field Exchange – Status Update            
Peter Lutz, OPC Foundation
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.

13.20  

             

Co-developing a pilot integration using OPC UA and MQTT - Deepening Integration in Manufacturing
Ronal Bejarano, Wärtsilä & Timo Lundstedt, Konecranes
Ronal Bejarano is a Senior OT-IT Integrator at Wärtsilä's Mechatronics Analytics and System Integration team, specializing in architecting, developing, deploying and monitoring system integrations and AI/ML applications for edge and cloud computing in manufacturing environments. With over 7 years of industry experience and 4 years of academic research work, Ronal brings deep expertise in bridging operational and information enterprise systems through industrial automation tools, software development practices and cybersecurity.  

Timo Lundstedt is a Project Manager and Research Engineer at Konecranes’ Research & Innovation team, specializing in software system design and testing, and research project leading. Timo is focused on developing and implementing new customer-centric innovations for manufacturing environments, working for the most part in past years with designing crane integrations into customers' machine-to-machine (M2M) communication ecosystems.His work involves developing systems where data is accessible through industrial standard methods, such as OPC-UA Server/Client communication, while ensuring security layers are isolated to maintain product safety.

13.40               
Coffee Break, Meet the Sponsors                         

14.10  

                                       

Agentic Machine Onboarding using SFC
Hubert Asamer, AWS
Hubert Asamer is an Industry Specialist Solutions Architect and Tech Lead at AWS with over 20 years of professional experience in systems engineering, software engineering & IT. In his role he works together with manufacturing customers to help them unlock the right data for the right use cases. Owning the AWS-provided free & open-source Software - Industrial ShopFloorConnect - he has helped many customers to begin and strengthen their Industrial DataOps journey. Hubert has worked in Aerospace Industry, Research Institutions and Federal Agencies. Back in 2005 he started his career as a GIS/Geospatial Analyst after earning a Master’s degree in Cartography & Geoinformation at the University of Vienna.

14.30    

           

Possibilities of OPC UA from the Sterilizer Equipment Technology Perspective    
Juha Mattila, STERIS Life Sciences
Juha Mattila is Senior Manager, Technical Services at STERIS Life Sciences. At STERIS Juha is SME for Moist Heat and VHP Sterilization, VHP biodecontamination, and critical utilities (WFI & Pure Steam Systems). He has B. Sc. in HVAC and Process Engineering, and M. Eng in Business Informatics. He has over 25 years of experience within pharmaceutical and medical device industries and related research, including R&D, engineering, and product management. He is an active member of PDA, ISPE and Finnish Biosafety Network, and a subject matter expert member in relative international standard work groups of ISO, ASTM, CEN and SFS, representing Finland.

14.50    
                                     


OPC UA industry examples
Veli-Pekka Salo, Wapice
Veli-Pekka Salo is the Head of AI, Analytics and Automation at Wapice Ltd. With over 20 years of experience in digitalization and software solutions for industrial sectors—particularly in the energy field—he brings deep expertise in driving technological transformation. Together with his team, he focuses on delivering cutting-edge AI and digitalization solutions that unlock efficiency, connectivity, and intelligence across industrial operations, shaping the factories of the future.

15.10               
Break, Meet the Sponsors     

15.40   

            

AI Agent: MCP & OPC UA for Claude             
Mika Karaila, Valmet
Mika Karaila has been with Valmet for nearly 40 years.
He currently holds the position of Research Director and serves as Professor of Practice at Aalto University. His work focuses on advancing innovative AI and machine learning models, as well as software solutions tailored for industrial applications.

16.00                                         
Beckhoff

16.20  

                                       

Unified Namespace over OPC UA
Pyry Grönholm, Prosys OPC
Pyry Grönholm is the CEO of Prosys OPC, a company specialized in OPC and OPC UA software products and industrial integration solutions. He has over 25 years of experience in the industrial software sector, working across product development, customer projects, and leadership roles. Pyry’s expertise centers on demanding IT/OT integration, OT cybersecurity practices, and the adoption of open, standards-based industrial interoperability. Throughout his career, he has been an active advocate for OPC UA and its role in building scalable, secure and future-proof industrial systems. At Prosys OPC, he leads the company’s strategy, product portfolio development, and customer collaboration in global industrial markets.

16.40               
Final Q&A       

17.00               
End of the day

 

PRICE AND REGISTRATION

Registration fee 130 EUR + vat 25,5 % includes admission to all the sessions and exhibition of the OPC Day Finland 2025, lunch, coffees and the material of the day

Registration: https://www.lyyti.in/OPC_Day_Finland_2025

 

 

 

OPC UA is Open Platform Communications, Unified Architecture, a standard technology that enables secure and reliable, platform independent interoperability in industrial automation and other industries. (https://opcfoundation.org/about/what-is-opc/)

All rights for changes reserved. 

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