Easy connectivity with Node-RED in Industrial IoT: oee.ai connector

Node-RED is an open source product in the class of low-code products. Node-RED is easy to use and can be used in a variety of ways. In order to further reduce the effort required to connect systems to oee.ai, we provide a free oee.ai connector for download.

The official self-description of the Node-red It reads as follows:

“Node-RED is a programming tool to connect hardware devices, APIs, and online services... together.

It provides a browser-based editor that makes it easy to connect flows to a wide range of nodes in the palette, which can be deployed at runtime with a single click.”

That already says a lot. The open source project on which the software is based began in IBM research centers in 2013 and since Version release 1.0 In 2019, it is considered safe for productive use.

The manufacturing industry is increasingly opening up to the idea of open source. For example, Node-RED is being preinstalled on more and more controllers. Wikipedia has a good overview here. For example, the heavyweight Siemens is also using Node-RED more and more frequently, see also Node-RED with SIMATICIOT2000 or the Visual Flow Creator.

Regardless of this pre-installation, Node-RED can also be loaded independently onto a modern controller with runtime environment to install additional software and used from there.

In this way, machines from different manufacturers and of different ages — at the latest after the retrofit of a modern control system — can be connected to applications outside the plant.

Within Node-RED, so-called “nodes”, “flows” and “connections” are then available, which can be used in a variety of ways and, for example, to read data from the controller.

For example, if you search for “opcua”, “s7”, “modbus” or “https” in the Node-RED library, you can find nodes there with impressive download numbers. These nodes can be downloaded free of charge and then modified for your own use.

Do you search for oee.ai — or do you use it directly link — you will also find a preconfigured node.

By unconfiguring the node, the system sends the data required for oee.ai to the OEE.AI cloud via MQTT. Sample flows are also available, which can be used as a reference for your own implementation. In this way, it is very easy — actually just a configuration — to connect a system to oee.ai.

If you have any questions about system connectivity in general or Node-RED in particular, feel free to contact us.