EUROMAP recommendations: what does each number mean? A complete overview

If you have ever looked at an injection moulding machine datasheet, you have come across it. "Size according to EUROMAP." "Energy efficiency class according to EUROMAP 60.1." "EUROMAP 67 robot interface as an option." The numbers are there in every catalogue, yet their meaning is rarely explained, and there is hardly any comprehensive overview available.

This article tries to fill that gap. It does not replace the recommendations themselves, but provides a map to them: which one is for what, which one superseded which, which one is not yet a final release, and which ones are worth knowing when you buy a machine, integrate a robot or build data acquisition.

Recommendation, not law: what this means in practice

EUROMAP is the association of European plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers. Its technical documents are issued by its technical commission, which operates at the German VDMA in Frankfurt. What it publishes, it consistently calls a technical recommendation, not a standard.

The difference is not a formality, but it is not where most people look for it either. Even the application of a harmonised standard is not mandatory. It does, however, have legal significance: if its reference has been published in the Official Journal of the European Union, its application gives a presumption of conformity with the legal requirements it covers. The mandatory element is the legal requirement itself, not the application of the standard, and conformity can also be demonstrated by other technical solutions. A EUROMAP recommendation has no such legal role at all. A manufacturer is free to wire its robot interface connector differently. That does not make its machine non-compliant, only incompatible.

It is precisely this mechanism that keeps the system alive. A recommendation works because non-compliance hurts the manufacturer: its machine cannot be connected to the existing robot, its energy figure cannot be compared with the competitor's, its mould changer does not fit. The pressure is commercial, not legal. That is why we use the term de facto industry standard: the major machine manufacturers and the robot and peripheral makers all align with it as if it were mandatory.

With the newer, OPC UA-based recommendations the situation is even stronger. These do not merely resemble the international specifications, they are identical to them in content, matched release by release. EUROMAP 77 Release 1.01 is identical to OPC 40077 Release 1.01 and to the VDMA 40077:2020-06 edition. The identity always applies to specific releases, not to the recommendation number in general, so when aligning with a partner it is worth stating the version as well.

In one sentence

EUROMAP tells us how to compare machines and how to plug them together. Whether a machine is safe and may be placed on the market is not decided by EUROMAP but by the requirements of the EU regulations applicable to machinery. The application of harmonised safety standards is likewise voluntary for this purpose, but it can give a presumption of conformity.

The logic of the numbering

At first glance the numbering looks arbitrary. Why is the dry cycle in number 6, energy in 60, the robot in 67? The numbering does not form a strict, official thematic system, but historically well recognisable groups have emerged within it. The figure below is therefore a map for orientation, not a classification rule: the ranges overlap, and there are recommendations that EUROMAP's own list files under a general category.

Machine characterisation and machine acceptance

This is the oldest and least known group, yet it is the most important one at machine acceptance. These recommendations describe how to measure a machine's characteristics so that the value can be compared independently of the manufacturer. They are the tools for comparing apples with apples.

If four recommendations are worth highlighting for machine acceptance, it is these four: number 7 for the maximum clamping force, 6 for the dry cycle time, 9 for platen parallelism and 19 for the plasticising capacity. If these appear in the acceptance report, then at least the measurement method will not be a point of dispute, because measurements are taken according to a pre-agreed, jointly referenceable procedure. The acceptance limits and the measurement conditions can of course still be argued over; those have to be recorded separately.

Electrical and mechanical interfaces

This is the largest group and, in practice, the most frequently used. These decide whether the cell built around the machine comes together.

Where a version number appears in the table, it is the current release. Where only a year is given, it is the year the recommendation was published according to the EUROMAP list. The two often do not coincide, because a recommendation published in 2009 may have a current version from 2020. In a contract, always write the specific version, not just the number.

The very existence of the 81 series says something about the direction of the system. 81 is the interface for the safety signals only, and it can be used when the non-safety signals already travel over another interface, typically OPC UA. This is not an after-the-fact interpretation: EUROMAP 79 itself states that it does not carry the safety signals over OPC UA, and that for those the electrical interface defined in 81 must be used. So 81 sorts out the remainder that stays hard-wired even when everything else no longer is.

The connector is also part of the recommendation

In these recommendations it is not only the meaning of the signals that is fixed, but the physical connector as well: the housing size, the number of poles of the insert, the cross-section of the contacts. This is what makes the system work in practice. EUROMAP's own supplier list states this in a single sentence: the connectors of the manufacturers listed on it are interchangeable with each other. In other words, you do not have to buy the machine-side and robot-side connectors from the same brand.

The table below summarises which recommendation calls for which connector family. The specific type designations and part numbers per manufacturer can be found in EUROMAP's continuously updated supplier list.

Two things are immediately apparent from this. One is that 67 and 71 use the same 50-pole D connector, just as 12 and 62 use the same 32-pole one: the connector alone therefore does not identify the interface, the wiring does. The other is that for the newest recommendation, the 2024 series 81, far fewer suppliers appear on the list than for the old ones. With a new interface this should be treated as a procurement risk, and before ordering it is worth checking who can actually supply.

Energy efficiency

Two measurement recommendations each for injection moulding and blow moulding machines, with the same logic: consumption is stated relative to the mass of material processed, on a kWh/kg basis, under fixed test conditions. These are complemented by the 90 energy label, which is not a measurement method but a uniform presentation of the measured result.

The most common misunderstanding

The efficiency class according to 60.1 applies to the machine, not to the cell, and it is measured under fixed test conditions. It is good for comparing two machines of comparable size and category before purchase. Consistent with this, separate class tables apply to screw diameters of 25 mm and above, and below 25 mm. For your own operating consumption, 60.2 gets you closer, with your own product and material, but even that is not a direct electricity bill estimate.

When buying a machine, this difference is measurable in money. The class shown in the catalogue is a comparison tool; the product-related measurement gets you closer to real operating consumption. If you are seriously comparing two manufacturers' offers, ask for both.

OPC UA and Industry 4.0

In data exchange between the machine and the MES, the most important generational shift of the past ten years has been the move from file-based interfaces to OPC UA information models. The earlier EUROMAP world was more varied than that: among the old recommendations there are electrical signal interfaces, CANopen solutions and real-time Ethernet as well. What makes the OPC UA-based recommendations new is that they do not merely describe a data format, but also define the properties, states and methods with which a machine or peripheral appears on the network.

One practical conclusion from this: if a manufacturer says "we support OPC UA", that in itself is not an answer. The question is which information model it supports. A proprietary, manufacturer-specific OPC UA server is just as closed a system as an old serial protocol, only in more modern packaging. Support for 77, on the other hand, provides a standardised basis for integration between different manufacturers' machines and MES systems, provided that both sides support the same information model and a compatible release of it.

Digital twin: the newest direction

The newest branch, launched in 2025, is the Asset Administration Shell. The idea is that every asset should have a standardised, machine-readable digital datasheet, which is not sent over as a PDF but exists as a queryable data structure.

Today this is more a question of future-proofing and roadmap than a general baseline procurement requirement. It is worth knowing about, though, because it signals where the system is heading: in the future the mould and the machine will not only exchange signals, but also structured data about themselves. Anyone buying a machine now for ten years would do well to ask whether the control system will be expandable in this direction.

Extrusion, blow moulding, presses

Injection moulding is the most elaborated area, but not the only one. Most of the traditional, non-OPC UA-based extrusion and blow moulding recommendations are considerably older, yet machine descriptions and line interfaces still refer to them today.

Extrusion

Blow moulding and presses

Handle old figures with care

In this group several recommendations date from the 1970s, and some of them are only available in scanned form. Figures read out of them should be verified against the original document before they end up in a contract.

Legacy protocols, for retrofits

If you are connecting an existing machine fleet to a network, these are the ones you will run into.

The most important question in a retrofit is usually not which protocol runs on the old machine, but whether the control system can output data at all. If it cannot, data acquisition can be solved with external sensors and signal tapping, which is no longer a EUROMAP question but a project question.

How to use this when requesting quotations

Knowing EUROMAP is good for exactly one thing when requesting quotations: putting the comparison on a common footing. If two offers refer to the same recommendation, to the same release of it and to comparable test conditions, then their figures can meaningfully be placed side by side. If neither refers to it, you do not know what you are comparing with what.

And a remark in the opposite direction, which is at least as important: EUROMAP conformity in itself is not a certificate of quality. Having a 67 connector on a machine does not make it a good machine. The recommendations provide comparability and connectability, not performance.

Where you meet this in practice

The recommendations above are not theoretical questions. With the machines and peripherals distributed by CIS, every group comes up somewhere:

• PowerJet injection moulding machines: the side of machine characterisation, energy figures and robot connection.
• Samfacc linear part-removal robots and Borunte 6-axis robots: fitting to the machine is precisely a question of the 67 interface. A linear robot for simple part removal, a 6-axis one for more complex tasks.
• MARSE temperature control units: the territory of the OPC UA model according to 82.1, if you want to connect the temperature control unit to data acquisition as well.
• iTech industrial chillers: important parts of the total energy demand of the production cell and the plant, but their consumption must be treated separately from the injection moulding machine's class according to EUROMAP 60.1. The measurement boundary of 60.1 explicitly excludes the heat transferred into the machine's cooling medium.
• PowerJet EB blow moulding machines: the territory of recommendations 40, 42, 45 and 46.

If an interface question arises for a specific machine or an existing machine fleet, it is worth asking before the robot or the peripheral is ordered. The price of an adapter and the cost of an integration that set off in the wrong direction are not the same order of magnitude.