Single Major Automation Vendor Architecture Myth

Summary

Manufacturers who plan to be competitive, increase profits and grow no longer believe the single major automation vendor architecture myth. The single major industrial automation vendor myth is built on the premise that manufacturers must use a single supplier's unique integrated system architecture ignores the fact that manufacturing businesses to be competitive must efficiently integrate and leverage solutions from a wide range of suppliers with open systems. 

Today, with the influx of innovative technologies, including IoT devices, open analytics/AI technology, edge and cloud computing manufacturing, users are innovating leveraging open architectures to improve productivity, customer responsiveness, competitiveness and profits. Leadership users are learning the value of leveraging open architectures to improve manufacturing performance deploying seamless multi-vendor architectures that are supported by a wider base of suppliers and industry trained staff increases system reliability and lowering lifecycle maintenance cost. This approach has been proven in the computer industry over the years. 

To understand the value of open systems, industrial users are supporting open initiatives, including the Open Group’s Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF), NAMUR Open Architecture (NOA), OPC Foundation, BioPhorum, CESMII, Eclipse Foundation, and others committed to open standards.

Single automation vendor architecture false premise

Major automation suppliers assert users should standardize on their plant-wide integrated architecture infrastructure and replace multiple, disparate control systems to achieve one plant-wide infrastructure illustrates a lack of understanding of serving customer needs. The false premise asserts that they and their approved partners can provide the best solutions in all categories to meet their customer requirements. These suppliers have gated partner ecosystems, exposing their unique interfaces only to partners that are allowed into the programs limiting the use of new innovate solutions. Ironically, these major vendor partner programs illustrate a major problem since superior products their partners offer are not allowed into these partner programs. Further, over the years when the major automation vendor introduces new offerings, they exclude partner products that are competitive with their new offerings.

Major automation suppliers argue non-partner products can be interfaced using software servers and gateways, but this is inefficient and expensive and creates increased application engineering and slow system response, as well as increasing lifecycle maintenance cost and reducing overall system reliability and availability. This limits the deployment of innovative new technologies, putting users at a competitive disadvantage in their industries.

The single vendor premise was accurate in the early industrial control & automation evolution similar the early days when proprietary IT systems were purchased from a single vendor such as IBM, Univac, Burroughs, NCR, Control Data Corporation (CDC), Digital Equipment Corporation, Wang and others but gave way to open systems in the 1980s led by the PC, portable applications, open networking, and open server revolution. This change ushered in dramatic efficiency, new applications and improve business performance and productivity that has alluded industrial automation. The computer industry has proven, many times over, that no single vendor can provide as strong and reliable a solution as an ecosystem of suppliers, powered by open architectures.

Manufacturing competitive imperative

A major threat for established manufacturing companies are competitors throughout the world not burdened with old ways of doing things and leveraging open technology in their operations to gain a significant competitive advantage. In the early days of OPAS I had a discussion with a high-level ExxonMobil executive about their passion for open systems. He described how the passion for open systems at ExxonMobil came from understanding how competitors particularly from developing countries not burdened with legacy systems are leveraging new open technology to more effectively compete and take market share. This type of thinking in the past led ExxonMobil to be an early adopter of Direct Digital Control (DDC) and Distributed Process Control Systems (DCS) in the 1970’s to be more competitive.

The dilemma users face is analogous to the IT battles between PC hardware and software versus minicomputer and mainframes when companies were faced with the need to upgrade information systems to remain competitive. This creates an investment risk for industrial automation users if they continue to invest continue in existing closed or semi-closed architectures their competitors will take market share from them.

Worldwide competition

The impact of open manufacturing initiatives continues to advance worldwide as countries and industry recognize the need to modernize with the Industry 4.0 movement continuing to accelerate. This has defined a model for all industrial manufacturing organizations to use to achieve the goal of holistic and adaptive open automation system architectures. Sustained competitiveness and flexibility to the dynamic technological growth can only be accomplished by leveraging open advanced technologies, using automation as a center to enable a successful transition. Germany’s Industry 4.0 initiative ignited worldwide cooperative efforts in other countries including China, Japan, Mexico, India, Italy, Portugal and Indonesia.

Single vendor responsibility fallacy

The user is always responsible for efficient and continuous production. Putting this in perspective, I have asked automation system vendors over the years what responsibility they take for consequential damages from downtime due to their systems failures and none are willing be liable. Discussing the idea of, “one throat to choke” with end-users the burden with proprietary systems is each require unique vendor education, unique vendor-oriented knowledge, special tools, and unique repair parts to get them running. Because users are responsible for system availability, they invest in training their own people at vendor classes and stocking repair parts to lower mean time to repair improving system availability. For manufacturing plants to run most efficiently, they must leverage systems from various vendors for balance of plant, utilities, logistics and other controls/automation. Focusing on a single major automation vendor architecture forces users into buying from a limited controlled source. Contrast this with enterprise computing systems built on open standards with a much larger base of widely available training, multiple competing suppliers, common components, interfaces and software.

Innovation shift to user initiatives

Users today have become significantly more sophisticated, technologically, and with greater cooperation with IT people are leveraging new technologies to increase performance and profits. An example is optimizing production using open historians and analytics tools such as TensorFlow creating manufacturing and process optimizers superior to automation vendor proprietary offerings.

Building blocks

The building blocks to achieve Open Industrial Integrated Automation are falling into place, enabling manufacturing companies to transition to increase competitiveness. Transitioning from vendor driven industrial automation architectures optimized for a single vendor’s products and curated partner ecosystem provides manufacturing companies the opportunity to increase profitability and market share.

Open natural progression

The established industrial automation industry has experienced relatively few changes over the years, compared to other industries. In fact, many of the major industrial automation innovations of the recent past, such as adopting Microsoft Windows, Industrial Ethernet Networks, and Application Virtualization were accomplished using Commercial Off the Shelf Technology (COTS) created by the computer industry. Even more telling is the contrast between the level of usability, flexibility and multivendor interoperability in the business enterprise and IT groups, as opposed to traditional industrial automation supplier offerings. Open systems create ecosystems that leverage more human and investment capital to create solutions than any single company.

Competitive imperative

Industry worldwide has come to the conclusion that low labor rates is not a winning strategy. To remain competitive and gain more flexibility and efficiency, manufacturers throughout the world are modernizing and completely integrating manufacturing businesses. The holistic vision is real-time linking of supply chain, design, manufacturing, outbound logistics and lifecycle service. This integration can only be accomplished by leveraging the latest technologies, and automation is a fundamental component for this transition to be successful. The adoption of new technology during times of significant innovation is critical for manufacturing success. If your competitors adopt better methodologies and technology, they may outpace you in the marketplace.