IPC-2591, Connected Factory Exchange, is the open industry standard that supports IPC-CFX. IPC-2591 establishes the requirements for the omnidirectional exchange of information between manufacturing processes and associated host systems for assembly manufacturing. The standard applies to communication between all executable processes in the manufacture of printed board assemblies – automated, semiautomated and manual – and is applicable to related mechanical assembly and transactional processes.

The standard defines the communication protocol and content across all assembly production processes and is broken down into the IPC-CFX Structural Overview, Operational Modeling, IPC-CFX Topics and Dynamic Structure and IPC-CFX Messages.

Because this standard supports the IPC-CFX SDK, IPC releases regular version updates to support industry when new equipment or message sets are added to the standard.