Open-source infrastructure for intelligent, connected, and AI-ready factories.

Open Factory Initiative is a community building open-source software for the next generation of manufacturing operations. Our mission is to help factories become more connected, explainable, interoperable, and AI-ready.

We are building the foundation for an open Factory Intelligence Layer: software that connects fragmented industrial systems, understands the live state of the factory, detects operational and quality issues earlier, and supports governed action across people, machines, materials, quality, maintenance, and production.

Factories are full of valuable data, but that data is often scattered across disconnected systems:

• ERP
• MES
• SCADA
• Historians
• QMS
• CMMS
• LIMS
• WMS
• Spreadsheets
• Operator notes
• Engineering logs
• Tribal knowledge

This fragmentation makes it difficult for teams to answer basic operational questions quickly:

• What is blocking production?
• Why is quality drifting?
• Which work orders are at risk?
• Which machine behavior changed before the deviation?
• What containment action should happen next?
• What did we learn from the last similar incident?

Open Factory Initiative exists to create open-source infrastructure that makes factory operations more queryable, explainable, and actionable.

Our first major project is the Factory Intelligence Platform.

The platform is designed to connect industrial data sources, normalize factory events, detect process and quality drift, support investigation workflows, and help teams take governed action with human oversight.

The first MVP focuses on Process Sentinel, an open-source quality drift and deviation intelligence application.

Synthetic Factory Simulator
→ Data Ingestion
→ Unified Factory Event Model
→ Drift Detection
→ Evidence Timeline
→ Human Review
→ Recommended Containment Actions
→ RCA / CAPA Drafting
→ Factory Memory

A modular platform for building factory intelligence applications.

Planned capabilities include:

• Industrial data ingestion
• Unified factory event model
• Synthetic factory simulator
• Process and quality drift detection
• Evidence timelines
• Governed AI workflows
• Human approval queues
• RCA / CAPA drafting
• Factory memory
• Web-based operations workbench
• API-first integration layer

The first application in the platform.

Process Sentinel helps manufacturing teams detect early signs of quality drift, connect process signals to quality outcomes, accelerate deviation investigations, recommend containment actions, and create reusable learning from every incident.

A synthetic manufacturing environment for development, testing, demos, and education.

The simulator will generate realistic production lines, assets, process tags, quality measurements, work orders, anomalies, and deviation scenarios.

Open-source connectors for common factory data sources and protocols.

Potential integrations include:

• MQTT
• OPC UA
• REST APIs
• CSV / batch uploads
• Historians
• MES
• QMS
• CMMS
• LIMS
• ERP

Factories should have access to open, inspectable, and extensible infrastructure for industrial intelligence.

The platform should work with existing industrial systems, not require factories to rip and replace what already works.

AI should recommend, explain, and coordinate. Humans should approve high-impact actions.

Every detection, recommendation, and action should include traceable evidence.

Teams should be able to use one component or the full platform.

This project is not only about software. It is also about helping contributors understand manufacturing systems, industrial data, quality workflows, and agentic AI architecture.

Open Factory Initiative is for:

• Manufacturing engineers
• Controls engineers
• Quality engineers
• Data engineers
• Software engineers
• AI engineers
• Plant managers
• Process engineers
• Reliability engineers
• Students and researchers
• Open-source contributors interested in industrial AI

You do not need to be an expert in manufacturing or AI to contribute. Good documentation, testing, examples, and education are core parts of the mission.

The initial platform is expected to use a modern, open-source stack:

• Backend: Python, FastAPI
• Frontend: TypeScript, React / Next.js
• Database: PostgreSQL
• Time-series data: TimescaleDB or compatible patterns
• Eventing: MQTT, Redpanda, or Kafka-compatible architecture
• Testing: Pytest, Playwright, contract tests, and end-to-end tests
• Documentation: Markdown, diagrams, architecture decision records
• AI workflows: Governed agent patterns with human approval and traceable evidence

Technology choices may evolve as the community grows.

We are starting with a narrow, useful vertical slice:

1. Simulate factory data
2. Ingest and normalize events
3. Detect quality or process drift
4. Show supporting evidence
5. Recommend containment actions
6. Require human approval
7. Draft RCA / CAPA material
8. Capture learning into factory memory

This keeps the project practical while laying the foundation for a broader Factory Intelligence Platform.

The project is early, which means there are many ways to help:

• Improve documentation
• Add examples
• Build simulator scenarios
• Create industrial connectors
• Write unit tests
• Write end-to-end tests
• Improve the UI
• Review architecture
• Propose data models
• Create diagrams
• Help define manufacturing workflows
• Share real-world manufacturing use cases

Before contributing, please read the repository’s contribution guidelines, code of conduct, and project roadmap.

• Add a synthetic factory scenario
• Improve the glossary of manufacturing terms
• Write test cases for drift detection
• Create a sample RCA / CAPA template
• Add documentation for MQTT ingestion
• Improve onboarding docs
• Create architecture diagrams
• Add example dashboards
• Write a connector stub
• Document a real-world manufacturing workflow

open-factory-initiative/
  .github/
  factory-intelligence-platform/
  process-sentinel/
  factory-simulator/
  industrial-connectors/
  docs/

Open Factory Initiative is being built as a contributor-friendly open-source community.

We value:

• Practical manufacturing knowledge
• Clear documentation
• Tested software
• Respectful collaboration
• Real-world usefulness
• Open standards
• Human-centered AI

The long-term vision is an open ecosystem for intelligent manufacturing operations.

A factory should be able to connect its systems, represent its operational state, detect risk, investigate problems, coordinate responses, and learn from every event without being locked into a single vendor or closed platform.

Open Factory Initiative is our contribution toward that future.

This project is in early development.

The first priority is building a practical MVP around factory simulation, quality drift detection, governed recommendations, and investigation workflows.

Follow the repositories in this organization to track progress.