TMC OPC UA: The Universal Language for Tobacco Manufacturing
Discover how the Tobacco Machine Communication standard, built on OPC UA, solved fragmentation, boosted efficiency, and empowered AI-driven factories for Philip Morris International, JTI, and other global leaders.
The Challenge: Fragmentation in Tobacco Manufacturing
- Inconsistent Data: Machines from OEMs like Hauni, GD, and IMA used proprietary protocols, creating silos. Typically only 5 data points were available.
- Manual Overload: Operators manually checked buffer levels, material integrity, and machine states.
- High Costs: Custom integrations for each OEM/machine generation slowed digital transformation.
“Legacy equipment are a bit like mistery boxes with their own proprietary protocol. Even if you could get to the data, it would be be very hard to make sense of."
Josselin Vallee, Manager for Machine Integration & Supervision, Philip Morris International
The Solution: TMC OPC UA
What is TMC?
- OPC UA Companion Specification: Standardizes data models for Tobacco Machine Communication (TMC), ensuring identical variable names, data types, and values across OEMs.
- Developed for: BAT, Imperial Brands, JTI and Philip Morris International under the OPC Foundation.
- Authored by: Aleph Digital Industry
- Key Supported Use Cases:
- Monitoring and control: real-time standardized state, remote control
- Malfunctions: root-cause identification
- Asset management: processing capability, digital history (relocations, revamps)
- Production: real time reporting, full digital setup control
- Material tracking and integrity: from raw tobacco to finished sticks
- Replenishment: material stock and consumption
- Rejects: real-time monitoring with root cause
- Supervision: zero-touch supervision and control
- Before vs After TMC:
Why OPC UA?
- Interoperability: Bridges IT/OT systems, from PLCs to ERP.
- Security: Built-in encryption and access control.
- Scalability: Runs on edge devices to cloud systems.
“TMC gathers material, machine, performance, and process order information, all in one place. This makes it easy to receive, check, and send information back and forth. Now, we can verify material quality with our MES system and collect material and machine information when there are processing issues."
Josselin Vallee
Manager for Machine Integration & Supervision, Philip Morris International
“TMC harmonizes data exchange and interoperability for the common benefit of both cigarette manufacturers and OEMs."
Elmar Schlöder
Director Digital and Process Control, Global Engineering, JTI
Chairman, TMC Joint Working Group
“Aleph authored a rich OPC UA information model driving interoperability in the tobacco industry.”
Stefan Hoppe
President and Executive Director
OPC Foundation
Resources and Next Steps
- Download:
- Philip Morris International Case Study PDF
- TMC 2.0 Specification SheetCTA Section:
- “Book a TMC Consultation”
- “Explore Aleph FlexServer for Legacy Integration
CTA: “Download Full Case Study”
“Schedule a Legacy Machine Assessment”
