Media Release

8th November 2017 - ViTrox is One of the Invited Members of The Hermes Standard

Munich, Germany – As previously announced, the members of The Hermes Standard Initiative will present first implementation projects, solutions and use cases at this year’s Productronica (November 14-17, 2017, Munich Trade Fair Centre). In addition, The Hermes Standard Initiative will hold its second official member meeting on Monday, November 13, during which eleven more well-known equipment manufacturers are expected to announce their participation in the Initiative. The Hermes Standard is an open, non-proprietary standard for machine-to-machine communication in SMT production. Based on the TCP/IP protocol and XML, it enables electronics manufacturers to implement Industry 4.0 concepts much more efficiently on their factory floors. Thomas Bliem, Director Product Management at ASM and chair of The Hermes Standard Initiative: “The development of new technologies in recent years enables electronics manufacturers to make their factories much more intelligent and efficient.

Having the right IT infrastructure is critically important for the smart factory. For SMT lines, this means that machines from different makers must be able to communicate with each other, and this can only be accomplished with a common standard. With The Hermes Standard, our industry has taken an essential step towards factory automation. At this year’s Productronica, visitors of the participating equipment makers’ booths can learn about the concrete benefits that The Hermes Standard will deliver for them.”

The standard, which was rolled out in 2017 under the leadership of ASM Assembly Systems and Asys Automatisierungssysteme, is used to automate the flow of PCBs through SMT production lines with a variety of machines from different manufacturers. During the first official membership meeting held in Munich last March, 16 well-known equipment makers joined the project. Many of them have announced that they plan to present first solutions supporting the new standard at this year’s Productronica trade fair. In the meantime, The Hermes Standard Initiative is making the specification of the new standard available for downloading at its official website Hermes Standard. Eleven more key players in the SMT industry have announced that they would join the initiative in November. At member companies’ booths like that of ASM (A3.377), visitors can get information about the current status of The Hermes Standard and learn how to implement it on their own factory floor.

Open cooperation and focus on customer benefits

“This year we took an important step and focused on open cooperation within the framework of The Hermes Standard Initiative for the benefit of our customers. Electronics manufacturers want to interconnect their equipment and demand solutions from us. Many manufacturers have recognized the significance of an open communication interface and taken action. Anyone who wants to offer SMT solutions in a market that will be dominated by smart factory technologies can count on The Hermes Standard,” says Thomas Bliem. “I look forward to showing off the progress we have made by presenting some first solutions that support The Hermes Standard at this year’s Productronica.”

sourced from: smtttoday