You may have read about OPC UA going through the process to become an IEC recognized international standard on the OPC Foundation or OPCConnect.com.

Achieving IEC recognition was part of the OPC UA plan since the very beginning.   As the current OPC UA specifications were written, the editors followed the IEC guidelines in for things like nomenclature, formatting etc. Since OPC is used in industry throughout the world, becoming an officially endorsed international IEC standard has benefits in terms of interoperability and standardization.   Now that the various OPC UA specifications are released, they will become the baseline for the IEC 62541-X documents.

The OPC UA IEC Working Group was formed late last year, with the next meeting happening Jan 14th.  Right now, the group has fairly good representation from various countries.  The members represent a mix of vendors and research facilities.  They include Matrikon, ABB, Rockwell, Schneider, Mitsubishi and Yokogawa and universities/research centers in Finland, Japan and China.

This is another important step for OPC UA interoperability, collaboration and adoption.  As the announcement on the OPC Foundation website says, anyone interested in more details about the program should contact their local IEC country representation, or contact the OPC Foundation directly.