OpenFactory Manifesto#

Making the Physical World Versionable, Testable, Programmable — and Connected at Scale

🌐 The Problem#

Factories today are too often black boxes:

  • Asset configurations are hidden in vendor tools or tribal memory

  • Deployments are manual, brittle, and hard to reproduce

  • Data is siloed, delayed, or lost entirely

  • Assets rarely collaborate beyond fixed, hard-coded logic

  • Scaling to hundreds of assets breaks the architecture

Meanwhile, in the software world:

  • Everything is version-controlled, testable, and observable

  • Systems scale to millions of users with real-time coordination

  • Change is traceable, safe, and automatable

Why can’t the real world work the same way?

🚀 Our Belief#

We believe factories should be:

  • Defined in code

  • Deployed with confidence

  • Tested before commissioning

  • Auditable after changes

  • Collaborative by design

  • Scalable by default

Factories are not static. They are living, distributed, data-driven systems.

🔧 What OpenFactory Is#

OpenFactory is a deployment and coordination framework for the physical world.

It turns configuration files into factories, and assets into live, connected services.

With OpenFactory:

  • ✅ Assets are described as versioned YAML, enabling traceability and reuse

  • ✅ Services are deployed declaratively, supporting consistent, automated operations

  • ✅ Simulators enable safe testing, before hardware is ever touched

  • ✅ CI/CD pipelines bring DevOps to the shop floor, ensuring continuous delivery

  • ✅ Every change is tracked, repeatable, and explainable, supporting auditability

  • ✅ Thousands of assets operate in real-time collaboration, across the factory floor

  • ✅ Data streams are processed with high throughput and low-latency distributed flow

This isn’t just an orchestrator — It’s the digital nervous system of your factory.

🧱 Core Principles#

  1. Configuration as Truth The YAML file is the contract — not a hidden machine-side tweak.

  2. Declarative Over Imperative Describe the desired state. Let OpenFactory enforce it.

  3. Simulate First, Deploy Later Every production line should run in software before running in steel.

  4. GitOps for the Physical World Changes move through commits, not chaos.

  5. Make Deployment an API People and machines can trigger deployments the same way.

  6. Scale Without Fear Whether you manage 5 assets or 5,000, the experience stays the same.

  7. Data Should Flow, Not Wait Assets don’t just emit data — they collaborate in real time. Data flows freely and instantly between services.

🌍 Our Vision#

Imagine:

  • A new packaging line is proposed in Europe. You simulate it in Canada. It passes. You deploy it to production with confidence.

  • A quality control station in Line A streams results to a predictive model that updates parameters on a press in Line B — in real time.

  • A change to a robot configuration triggers a validation pipeline, simulation, and staged deployment — all tracked and versioned in Git.

  • Your entire factory — every sensor, every controller, every flow — is visible, reproducible, and connected.

OpenFactory makes the real world programmable — and connected, at scale.

📣 Call to Action#

This is an invitation:

  • To integrators: Ship code, not USB sticks

  • To operators: Trust deployments, not word of mouth

  • To manufacturers: Treat your factories like software — and scale with confidence

  • To builders: Help shape the next generation of programmable, collaborative industry

👷 OpenFactory#

  • Factories as Code.

  • Deployment as API.

  • Collaboration in Real Time.

  • Scale Without Fragility.