MTConnect

MTConnect is a manufacturing technical standard to retrieve process information from numerically controlled machine tools. As explained by a member of the team that developed it, "This standard specifies the open-source, royalty-free communications protocol based on XML and HTTP Internet technology for real-time data sharing between shopfloor equipment such as machine tools and computer systems. MTConnect provides a common vocabulary with standardized definitions for the meaning of data that machine tools generate, making the data interpretable by software applications." A simple, real-world example of how this tool is used to improve shop management is given by the same author.