The objective of the Cloud Collaborative Manufacturing Networks (C2NET) project is the development of a cloud-based platform that will allow an efficient collaboration and optimization of supply chain processes. One of the main components of the C2NET platform is the Data Collection Framework (DCF) and the Data Collection Client (DCC), which must provide a reliable solution for receiving data from heterogeneous data sources. Moreover, incoming data must be transformed in a way that can be presented in the required format to be handled by optimizer and collaboration tools that reside in the C2NET platform. This research work focuses on the collection of data from different legacy systems. Then, this article presents an approach that may be employed by C2NET to permit the DCC to receive, interpret and transform data. Presented approach uses the PLANTCockpit OS solution, which principles and functionality are also included in the manuscript.