The IEC 61499 standard is one of the enabling technologies in QU4LITY. It can be used for engineering advanced automation systems under a distributed intelligence paradigm. The industrial grade implementation of this standard from NXT resulting in an IDE and runtime system are part of the tools and techniques for adaptive shopfloor automation and ZDM processes. The event-driven nature of IEC 61499 can be used to connect the OT level to the IT systems like data monitoring, predictive maintenance and analytic tools to support the evaluation of the behaviour of a factory.

At the IEEE INDIN 2021 conference IEC 61499 experts presented the state-of-the-art industrial information technologies and also gave an outlook on the future trends by participating to different technical tracks and special sessions of the conference. Participants to the conference learned about the benefits of the standard in terms of engineering efficiency, interoperable automation systems and interesting use-cases .  Experts from NXT, were invited to speak at the Industry Forum on the fit of IEC61499 for Industry 4.0 and their view on the future of industrial automation

The participation to this conference was a great opportunity to spread the knowledge about the IEC 61499 standard and the related technologies that play an important role in achieving the project goals.