The megatrends in automation and control are long-term changes and shifts that will end up shaping the direction of industrial technology, processes and products. Certainly, the concept of the Industrial Internet is the defining megatrend of our time, but there are other industrial control technologies being developed that will also have a lasting effect on specific areas within manufacturing companies.

At the recent ODVA conference in Florida, I had the opportunity to spend two days immersed in a series of topics and agenda that provided a snapshot of the broad trends.  Here are some of the highlights:

IIoT the Future of Industrial Automation

Edy Liongosari, Chief Research Scientist and Managing Director for Accenture Labs, delivered the keynote on “Building a Technology Strategy for the Industrial IOT World.” A key takeaway from his presentation is a survey of industry executives that found that, although more than 80% believe that IIoT can transform their business model, only 7% have a strategy in place to do so.

The IIoT has been around for more than a decade but his conclusion is that the continuing adoption of the Industrial Internet will be driven by incremental benefits in near-term and transformational, new business models over a longer term. He said this will be a multi-faceted and multi-step process that extends, not only from new equipment and facilities, but also fundamental changes to business processes, the materials supply chain and workforce.

He expects the evolution of system architectures to continue to emphasize integrated, loosely coupled platforms along with analytics at the edge that emphasizes device connectivity solutions and integrated security.

A PDF of his presentation is available on the ODVA website .

Time-Sensitive Networking

Several technical sessions explored different facets of Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and its impact on industrial control moving ahead. Continue Reading