by Gary Mintchell | Nov 13, 2025 | Manufacturing IT, Security
Rockwell Automation has upgraded its cybersecurity offering for operations technology (OT) applications. Executives touted how Rockwell’s roots in operations roots its cybersecurity offering more naturally in the plant than IT-oriented solutions overlaid at a recent media briefing. They noted its OT-designed platform and security services empower industrial organizations to reduce risk, maximize uptime and simplify compliance across the full cybersecurity lifecycle.
Rockwell Automation announced the launch of SecureOT solution suite, a comprehensive industrial cybersecurity offering designed to help manufacturers and critical infrastructure protect critical operations and build secure environments.
As industrial operations become increasingly connected, organizations are facing a sharp rise in cyber threats targeting operations technology (OT) systems. Many legacy systems were never designed with cybersecurity in mind, and traditional IT tools often fail to protect complex, aging industrial environments. SecureOT was developed to close the gap, helping organizations secure their OT infrastructure with technology and expertise built for the realities of modern industrial operations.
SecureOT brings together Rockwell Automation’s purpose-built SecureOT Platform, professional services and managed security services into a unified solution that delivers end-to-end protection for complex, aging and highly regulated industrial systems.
- SecureOT Platform delivers real-time asset visibility, risk prioritization and vulnerability management across diverse vendor ecosystems.
- Through its professional services, SecureOT offers strategic advisory, assessments and implementation support to help organizations strengthen their security posture. Its managed security services provide continuous 24/7 monitoring and incident response from Rockwell’s dedicated OT Security Operations Center (SOC) and Network Operations Center (NOC).
- SecureOT aligns with globally recognized frameworks, including NIST CSF, NIS2 and IEC 62443, and takes a vendor-neutral approach to securing industrial control systems and technology stacks.
Use case examples:
- A leading oil & gas producer achieved full OT asset visibility and remediated critical risks across remote operations in just six months.
- A large beverage manufacturer migrated their aging industrial network and compute installed base to a fully managed and supported infrastructure across more than 150 sites globally.
- An energy company doubled its NIST CSF maturity scores while delivering measurable ROI to executive leadership.
- A power utility gained secure, real-time visibility into remote substations – achieving NERC CIP compliance and reducing costs through agentless monitoring.
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by Gary Mintchell | Nov 12, 2025 | Cloud, Data Management, Edge, Operations Management
Industrial IT developers increasingly incorporate standard IT infrastructure. Rather than send platitudes about the mythical “IT/OT Convergence,” some actually just do it. Integration with Kubernetes exemplifies one such technology.
This news comes from edge orchestration developer ZEDEDA. The short list of benefits from edge orchestration solutions with Kubernetes.
- Simplifies edge operations by delivering consistent app management across distributed locations, minimizing expensive manual intervention at each site
- Automates large-scale edge infrastructure and application deployment—enforcing desired state for thousands of edge clusters, even with unreliable network connectivity
- Optimized AI processing close to operational data sources reduces expensive data backhaul to the cloud
ZEDEDA announced the first full-stack edge Kubernetes-as-a-Service solution that extends a cloud-native deployment experience to distributed edge environments. This new solution, ZEDEDA Edge Kubernetes App Flows, automates the edge application lifecycle—from packaging and configuration to delivery and observability—eliminating the need to manage cluster and application orchestration infrastructure. Edge Kubernetes App Flows supports the bare-metal and GPU compute required for edge AI applications, such as automated detection of manufacturing flaws and predictive maintenance.
Built on ZEDEDA’s proven edge platform, the new integrated Kubernetes solution extends the platform’s zero-trust architecture and offline resilience—keeping tens of thousands of devices and Kubernetes instances running continuously, even in demanding field environments with physical vulnerabilities and intermittent connectivity.
ZEDEDA Edge Kubernetes App Flows combines GitOps-based delivery with ZEDEDA’s zero-trust edge platform—letting organizations focus on applications, not infrastructure.
Key capabilities include:
- Application Definition and Marketplace: Deploys customizable application definitions consistently across distributed edge locations.
- Application Packaging and Distribution: Builds and distributes manifests tailored for edge requirements.
- GitOps-Based Continuous Delivery: Automates deployments through approved Git workflows for full auditability.
- Adaptive Observability: Monitors deployment and performance, even with intermittent connectivity and limited bandwidth.
ZEDEDA Edge Kubernetes App Flows is built on and integrates with all the leading security and scalability capabilities of ZEDEDA’s proven edge platform, including:
- Zero-Trust Security: Continuous validation of edge devices, applications, and communications.
- Offline Resilience: Graceful handling of intermittent connectivity and disconnected operations.
- Edge Scale: Support for tens of thousands of clusters and unattended edge devices.
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by Gary Mintchell | Nov 11, 2025 | Automation, Robots, Standards
I’m betting that you know where you are in terms of physical location. They once asked on TV ads, “Do you know where your kids are?” Now the questions are, “Do you know where your machines are?” and “Do your machines know where they are?”
OPC Foundation continues its quest to link to everything possible. Its list of “companion specs” is long. This new concerns a partnership regarding spatial understanding—by networked industrial systems of machines, robots, and mobile systems understanding one another by physical location. Sounds useful for things moving around the factory.
This partnership includes AIM-D, omlox, and the OPC Foundation creating a new OPC UA specification.
Industrial automation is facing a paradigm shift: machines, robots, and mobile systems are learning to “understand” space. With the new OPC UA Companion Specification for Identification and Locating, AIM-D e.V., PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI) with the open locating standard omlox, and the OPC Foundation are establishing the foundation for a common language of “spatial intelligence.”
Physical AI – that is, AI that actively perceives physical space and acts contextually – requires a unified understanding of positions, movements, and identities in space. This is precisely where the new Companion Specification comes in: it harmonizes the spatial data model for absolute positions within the OPC Foundation and allows for a unified global positioning of assets in the physical and digital world.
This enables a seamless integration of spatial data into industrial IT and OT systems – a prerequisite for autonomous mobile robots, intelligent assistance systems, and self-organizing production environments.
The new specification is now freely available on the OPC Foundation’s website and is considered a milestone for the next evolutionary stage of industrial intelligence.
The collaboration between AIM-D, omlox / PI, and the OPC Foundation brings together the disciplines of identification, locating, and communication in a common spatial context. This creates a decisive foundation to equip robots, vehicles, and machines with a shared spatial understanding – the key to Physical AI, resilient supply chains, and autonomous industrial ecosystems.
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by Gary Mintchell | Nov 10, 2025 | Automation, Commentary, Networking, Technology, Wireless
This is the weirdest press release I’ve received in a while. It appears that Pepperl + Fuchs needed to remind people it is still in the game. The company hasn’t updated me in years. I’ve known it mostly as a sensor manufacturer. This update concerns mobile devices, a market that companies such as this have pursued. Almost no one talks about augmented reality these days aside from speculation that Apple may move that way following the tepid acceptance of its virtual reality headset.
The release is obviously a marketing piece, but it provides observations useful to us all.
Hazardous areas
The digitalization of processes in hazardous areas places high demands on explosion protection. All infrastructure components used in these areas must be intrinsically safe or explosion-proof and certified. The Pepperl+Fuchs Group, a pioneer in the field of mobile devices for hazardous areas, meets these requirements with a comprehensive portfolio of certified solutions, from smartphones, tablets, and HMI systems to intrinsically safe barriers and remote I/O systems to Ethernet APL technology and sensor technology in hazardous areas.
As promised, news about augmented reality. This part of the story discusses virtues of AR without mentioning any P+F products. AR does hold promise, especially when companies need to bring in new employees who, of course, will not have had extensive experience.
Augmented reality (AR) offers enormous potential at device level for digitalizing processes. With the help of this technology, information can be brought directly into the field of vision and display of employees in real time and presented in a spatially and context-sensitive manner.
AR therefore offers particularly great potential for complex tasks such as shutdown work, commissioning, or fault diagnosis in areas that are difficult to access. The technology is also ideal for training and qualifying new employees, for example in practical on-the-job training with AR-supported instructions or via remote support. In addition, AR overlays can be linked to digital twins of assets to simulate scenarios. This integration significantly improves the basis for decision-making, increases efficiency, and ensures safe plant operation.
P+F touts 5G technology for communications. I’ve written about the hope of 5G for a few years. Only in the past few months has there been a successful use case presented to me using many of the anticipated benefits.
In addition to the necessary bandwidth, 5G also provides the low latency required to transmit AR content in real time and integrate it seamlessly. On site, technicians receive context-sensitive instructions, overlay markings on components, and live data such as sensor values or histories directly in their field of vision. At the same time, they can request support or instructions from remote experts at any time, who can be easily connected.
This shifts maintenance processes more toward just-in-time assistance, reducing errors and increasing first-time fix rates. Planning is shifting organizationally toward data- and event-driven workflows, for example, when predictive maintenance alerts automatically trigger AR checklists. An integrative approach is crucial here. AR and 5G are not isolated solutions. They must be seamlessly connected to CMMS/ERP systems, asset digital twins, and role and rights models.
Android Apps
Customers also benefit from the fact that Pepperl+Fuchs mobile devices are part of the Android Enterprise Recommended (AER) program. This guarantees consistent, easy deployment and management of mobile solutions through hardware and operating system support, as well as guaranteed security and operating system updates. The Samsung Knox mobile security solution also ensures a high level of device and data security for companies.
Connected workers—highly networked into the future. Summary.
Intrinsically safe tablets and smartphones already serve as digital and networked hubs for connected workers. They enable authentication, collect sensor data, and bundle a wide variety of communication channels. They also allow for the seamless integration of mobile scanners, IoT gateways, or communication peripherals such as headsets. This makes them a central component for safe, efficient, and networked work processes in hazardous areas.
In the future, platforms for “digital shift operation” will emerge that digitally map handover protocols, know-how transfers, shift handovers, and shift KPIs, thus enabling comprehensive shift digitalization. Step by step, the connected worker is evolving into a highly networked, smart-supported employee who can access and respond to all relevant information, analysis tools, and expert knowledge securely and context-sensitively in real time at any time.
“As a pioneer, Pepperl+Fuchs is continuously working on developing intuitive solutions to optimally connect people in industrial environments, simplify work processes, and sustainably increase efficiency,” says Christopher Limbrunner, Team Lead Product Management of the Enterprise Mobility division at Pepperl+Fuchs. “In addition to providing the right hardware, we also support our customers in the holistic planning and implementation of the necessary infrastructure. They benefit from our many years of expertise and a global support and service network. This ensures that applications are not only compliant and reliable, but also efficient and future oriented.”
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by Gary Mintchell | Nov 5, 2025 | Robots
Rockwell Automation’s evolution during the past five or more years has been instructive of the direction of American industry. Rockwell has been acquiring some interesting companies, one of which was Clearpath Robotics. This release bows to the current climate of building in America plus the growth of Autonomous Mobile Robots in manufacturing as well as in warehouse.
Rockwell Automation announced the first autonomous mobile robots (AMRs) have officially rolled off the production line at its global headquarters in Milwaukee.
The new 25,000 square feet OTTO production space at the Milwaukee campus is now assembling the OTTO 600 and OTTO 1200 AMRs, robots designed to move heavy materials safely and efficiently across busy factory floors and in tight spaces. By reducing reliance on manual forklifts, the AMRs help manufacturers increase safety, improve transition times, minimize damage to goods, and create more resilient and sustainable operations.
What makes these robots unique:
- Laser scanners scan the room more than 30 times per second, building a virtual map in their memory of the room around them.
- Through shared communication, each robot is aware of the other robots in the room and their locations, even around corners.
- Every OTTO AMR completes over 15 miles of driving before being considered ready to ship to the customer.
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