The industry standard for plant floor connectivity is OLE for process control (OPC).

The OPC (OLE for Process Control) technology is a worldwide standard for data sharing.

When the 2 products are interconnected, direct connections are possible; otherwise a suitable OLE for Process Control (OPC) is used to interconnect the systems.

Higher-level flow computers are also supported by OLE for process control drivers such as MatrikonOPC, KEPware and Autosol to create efficient data transfers on networks.

OPC (see OLE for process control) is preferably used as the interface; however, various OPC servers might be used depending on the control units to be integrated.

Recently, OLE for process control (OPC) has become a widely accepted solution for intercommunicating different hardware and software, allowing communication even between devices originally not intended to be part of an industrial network.

The introduction of Microsoft at the desktop and server layers resulted in the development of technologies such as OLE for process control (OPC), which is now a de facto industry connectivity standard.

OPC Unified Architecture is the most recent OLE for process control (OPC) specification from the OPC Foundation and differs significantly from its predecessors.

Computer languages like VisSim and Simulink allow quick creation of such real-time simulations and have connections to industrial displays and Programmable Logic Controllers via OLE for process control or digital and analog I/O cards.

OLE for Process Control (OPC), which stands for Object Linking and Embedding (OLE) for Process Control, is the original name for a standards specification developed in 1996 by an industrial automation industry task force.

The DTU accomplishes this by connecting to a number of industry standard communication protocols such as Modbus, OLEDB, OLE for process control (OPC), SMTP (E-mail), TCP/IP, Telnet, Web Service, and many others.