I have seen several industrial control systems entrants into the North American market. All thought they’d knock off market-leader Rockwell Automation. Several are still around. They have build nice businesses. They have not displaced Rockwell as the dominant PLC in the market.
But…Is there a vulnerability?
I recently heard from Bob Honor. I’ve known him for years. The last I had talked with him, he was given the unenviable task of organizing a sales force to sell MES solutions for Rockwell.
He has left Rockwell to co-found a new Industrial Control Systems (ICS) supplier. This platform is designed from the ground up as a secure platform. Rethinking the entire ICS paradigm, the Bedrock Automation team has built what it is calling a “new epoch of industrial automation.”
If you go to the Website and sign up for the email newsletter, I believe you will get a link to download a whitepaper that goes into some depth to explain the new design.
Here’s the introduction to the paper, “This white paper is the first in a series to outline a new epoch of industrial automation. All aspects of control system reliability, security and lifecycle cost have been rethought from first principles. The result is a new ICS platform we call Open Secure Automation. OSA delivers a user-centric renaissance of improved reliability, embedded security and lower cost.”
There are many interesting ideas in the platform and design. Perhaps I can get Bob or an engineer on the phone for a podcast interview after the first of the year. [Note: At no time did he tell me he was displacing Rockwell.]
Other competitors were (or thought they were) better, faster, cheaper at the same game.
Bedrock is attempting to change the game. Check it out and send me your thoughts. Is this enough of a game changer to disrupt the industry? For sure, I’ll be keeping an eye on developments.
Rockwell is a sitting duck, no new innovations, buggy firmware, support cut to the bare minimum. Quality and safety recall notices are commonplace. Prices keep increasing, they have cut every job they can, backfilling with new recruits at lower wages. Customer frustration is at an all time high! They are number one in USA, but number 2 and three are basically no shows………Bedrock could really shake things up! There are many former sales reps that would jump at the chance to help un-seat the king!
I don’t like anonymous comments. This is probably a disgruntled Rockwell employee or ex-employee.
However, if there has been a consistent theme from people with smaller controls companies in their conversations with me, it has been that “we’ll finally be the ones to unseat Rockwell.” Well, that is not as easy as it sounds. I keep asking how they will get around the fact that Rockwell has a sales person calling on every possible purchaser of control products in the US.
Now, at some point, companies do get too big, lose agility, and are disrupted. Microsoft was not disrupted by Linux or OSX. But it has been disrupted by the mobile and app economy. Plus, there’s not so much growth in “office” applications.
Bedrock has taken a different stance from others who are simply better/faster/cheaper. But there is much more to a control architecture than the PLC and I/O. But with more intelligent components (motion, drives, sensors) that all connect easily with Ethernet, there is a chance.
This will be interesting to watch unfold.