Building The Intersection of OT and IT Teams
Executives at software companies have been explaining their roles in “IT/OT Convergence” for at least 20 years. I hope to lead a banning of that term. It’s actually a bit of nonsense. Permit me an analogy. Sometimes in a soccer match a hard foul occurs. Suddenly...
OPC Foundation Extends Work To Field Layer Specifications
Whatever happened to Time Sensitive Networking (TSN)? I had been pondering the relative disappearance of several technologies creating buzz in 2020—TSN, Arduino, Raspberry Pi. Then came buried within the OPC Foundation discussion with us at the 25th ARC Industry Forum...
GE Digital Remote Operations for Oil & Gas and Chemical Industries
GE Digital presented to us during the ARC Industry Forum press and media conference this month. It introduced an enhanced remote operations solution for oil & gas and chemical industries. GE Digital introduced Remote Operations for Oil & Gas and Chemical...
Schneider Electric Updates EcoStruxure Automation Expert, Forges Strategic Agreement with Wood
Schneider Electric presented a couple of news items to us at the ARC Industry Forum a couple of weeks ago. It continues to push its evangelization of software-defined control using IEC 61499. It also announced a strategic agreement with Wood plc. I just got off a...
Global 2020 Manufacturing Industry Output
Manufacturing contraction lower than expected at 3.9%, driven by 1.9% growth in China Korea also leading the pack, but Germany faltersRubber and plastics machinery sector gains new significance in the light of the pandemicSemiconductors and electronics machinery...
Bayshore Acquires GE Digital Op Shield CyberSecurity Solution and Furthers Partnership
Bayshore Networks is a provider of active industrial cybersecurity protection solutions specifically designed for OT environments, automation engineers, and plant operators. It has had a partnership with GE Digital. At this month’s 2021 ARC Industry Forum,...
PAS Releases Sensor and Data Integrity
New capability ensures configuration data integrity and signal tracing to improve process safety, reduce cyber risk and support digital transformation PAS (now PAS Global, part of Hexagon) has long provided some valuable and interesting solutions for process...
Collaborative Information Server for integrated management of plant operations
Here is the Yokogawa announcement from this year’s ARC Industry Forum. This Collaborative Information Server fits firmly in the trend of providing plant data for better decision-making at both the operations and management level. Yokogawa Electric Corporation has...
After-Sales Remote Service Platform With Multi-camera Fieldstreaming Video Support Of All Camera Types
Technologies that enable remote service and support were already a trend before the travel restrictions of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic hit. These have improved exponentially since the first demo I experienced in 2000. I was recently introduced to ADTANCE, German company...
For First Time Yearly Non-Automotive Robotic Orders Higher Than Automotive Orders
I have noticed over the past several years that the share of sales of automation vendors from the automotive sector has been declining. If nothing else points to that trend, it would be sales of that automotive technology mainstay—robots. Welding robots populating...