Open architecture controller (OAC) is well known technology in factory automation. To better understand the requirements of OAC, authors have discussed the OAC related topics with a number of control experts who represents different segments of the machining industry. There is no common concept that is accepted or used, however, the common ideas for OAC is the control system that is hardware independent, interchangeable, and easily scalable. This paper presents summary of the understaning and requirements of OAC. Based on the requirements of OAC, authors developed the software based PC-CNC. The main focus of the PC-CNC was on the user customization capability and open interface between control networks in manufacturing system. This paper introduces the developed PC-CNC briefly. In addition to introduction of the PC-CNC, to fill the gap between end users and vendors of OAC, this paper presents two applications using OAC. One is a remote monitoring system. The OPC (Ole for Process Control) standard interface was used to monitor the status of open architecture CNC across network. The other is the remote production management module for machine tools using standard database interface.