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Illuminating the theme of ‘Integrated Industry - Industrial Intelligence, the 2019 Hannover Messe, hosted 6,500 exhibitors from 75 countries and 215,000 attendees from 95 nations. The event, which featured Sweden as the partner country, hosted over 80 forums and conferences which highlighted many new digitalization trends and technologies.

Manufacturing companies are becoming more aware of the need to modernize production methods and automation to compete globally, but many still find themselves stuck in a sunk investment trap.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The convergence of Information Technology (IT) & Operations Technology(OT) has been a growing topic of importance in manufacturing. Many times, however the focus on IT/OT convergence can be too narrow in scope to leverage the increasingly advanced technologies to achieve a manufacturing competitive advantage

The pace of technological change in the automation industry seems to be accelerating as we head into 2019, driven by innovations developed for Internet of Things and general computing.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) was envisioned to create single network to meet all requirements including audio, vision, and data with guaranteed speed and determinism for all applications.

After another busy year talking to a wide range of users, suppliers and industry consultants, and attending over 20 industry conferences and related events, I have another year’s worth of informed insights to share on the latest trends that will shape automation in 2018.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com A common topic of debate revolves around how process system architectures will be shaped in the future. One architectural vision would enable a shift of focus from process efficiency control to business performance control, with increasing levels of monitoring and control.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Reducing downtime has been one of the most relevant, shining examples of how Internet of Things (IoT) technology can have a real impact on today’s factory. The recent collaboration between OSISoft and Petasense aims to enhance this effort as this article explores.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com EdgeX Foundry is an open source project to build a common open framework for Internet of Things (IoT) edge computing and an ecosystem of interoperable components that unifies the marketplace and accelerates enterprise and Industrial IoT.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com We've received a number of comments and questions from vendors about The Open Group's effort to push for open process automation standards. Tn the aim of encouraging more discussion on the topic, we're sharing some of these questions in order to provide some more clarity on its importance.

The availability of many new technologies has provided the building blocks for dramatic changes in the manufacturing industry. Is your business model set to keep up?

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com There is an common adage that has survived the ages: If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Automation system users are expressing frustrations with existing systems and the lack of modern and open technology.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com In this day and age, it can sometimes seem like the small manufacturer is getting buried underneath the bigger entities in the industry. Yet, many of today’s advances, like the cloud-based MES, are making it possible for small and medium size manufacturers to improve their operation

2016 was an exciting year of innovation and exploration in industrial automation. All this cutting-edge development fuels the excitement, but also begs a relevant question: Will these developments lead to convergence, divergence, and/or chaos in 2017?

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com The Dell EMC World 2016, in October, was a thought-provoking experience, where Dell set forth their bright vision of the automation industry's connected future.

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com Focused on developing a standards-based, open, secure, interoperable process control architecture, the Open Process Automation saw an impressive turnout for this initial meeting with 57 individuals from 30 different organizations attending.

By Bill Lydon, Editor As a follow-on to ExxonMobil’s Industry Day, and their push to create specifications and standards for an, open, secure, and interoperable process control architecture, the Open Group hosted a webinar so that those interested companies, who could not attend the June 27 event in Houston, could join the conversation.

By Bill Lydon, Editor The cumulative leverage of applying a variety of new methods and products, in order to improve manufacturing efficiency and quality, is underrated. A great way to keep professionals aware of the latest automation trends is to host related trade events and symposiums.

Usually during cybersecurity presentations, the speakers talk about serious consequences of cyber security and then overwhelm people, who are not familiar with the topic, with deep levels of details and intricacies. This one answers a simple question: Where does the reasoning begin?

A major driver for the effort for open process control standards, has been the widespread call for accelerative automation technology, along with an ecosystem of suppliers that can leverage the latest technology.