by Gary Mintchell | Mar 26, 2026 | Generative AI, Process Control, Software
TwinThread is one of those smallish software companies within an interesting niche that I can’t believe has yet to find a buyer. I quoted noted software developer and LinkedIn commentator Rick Bullota in 2020 extolling the value of the AVEVA/TwinThread link with the AVEVA purchase of OSIsoft. Just last year, I wrote about a stronger partnership between the two.
I see the company has pivoted a bit to now proclaiming itself as “the world’s first to have a complete Industrial AI platform.” I’ll leave that proclamation to your judgement. But this product looks worthwhile to check out.
Last week’s news involved TwinThread releasing an AI-powered manufacturing analytics solution targeting batch processes called Perfect Batch. This product empowers manufacturers to standardize and consistently replicate their best performing or “golden batches”.
Perfect Batch applies industrial AI to dynamically identify ideal batch profiles from historical data and actively recommend actions for increasing efficiency. This enables organizations to rapidly shift from reactive firefighting to proactive optimization in a matter of weeks – not months or years.
Perfect Batch At-a-Glance:
- Rapid Speed to Value: Perfect Batch connects to existing batch execution systems and automatically interrogates past data to build digital twins and apply models in hours.
- Dynamic Perfect Profile Learning: Instead of setting limits manually, Perfect Batch dynamically learns ideal control limits and process centerlines, based on actual process capability and historical performance.
- Unlocked Hidden Capacity: Granular cycle time analysis identifies bottlenecks and lost production time, facilitating capacity improvements from existing assets without new capital investment.
- Optimization by Exception: Automated alerting and issue diagnosis empowers operations teams to focus on solving problems, without getting bogged down with endless troubleshooting and investigations.
- Optional Closed-Loop Action: Thread Builder, a real-time workflow engine that works with Perfect Batch, automates anomaly responses, performs automatic diagnoses, and can trigger specific corrective actions automatically.
- Automated Compliance: Tailored for regulated industries, Perfect Batch provides automated material tracking, quality and yield conformance, and audit-ready histories.
Beyond the plant floor, Perfect Batch helps drive strategic and collaborative alignment across organizations’ entire manufacturing portfolios by providing a global view of asset utilization and batch making performance. As a result, the platform serves as a single source of truth for cross-functional teams. This offers a common lens that operations teams, engineering teams, and supply chain leaders can all use to identify, prioritize, and proactively execute improvement initiatives that optimize the deployment of capital across the supply network.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 25, 2026 | Operator Interface, Process Control
Honeywell announced a pilot project last November for its AI-powered Operations Assistant. The commercial launch of the product has just been announced.
Everyone announces AI of one sort or another added to their systems. I suspect that operators will find both much assistance and occasional annoyance. I’d like to hear more about the real world after using AI for a while.
Honeywell announced March 19, 2026 the commercial launch of Experion Operations Assistant, an AI-powered solution designed to transform how industrial operators monitor plant performance, make critical decisions and respond to alarm incidents before they happen.
Built on Honeywell’s flagship distributed control system, Experion PKS, Experion Operations Assistant merges historical data with real-time operational insights to allow operators to forecast and respond to potential critical scenarios associated with unsafe operations and production losses. The solution aims to bridge the gap between autonomous technologies and control room operators.
The commercial launch follows the recent pilot program during which Chevron and TotalEnergies were among the partners who leveraged Honeywell’s Experion Operations Assistant in their operations to help minimize unplanned downtime. In its pilot phase, the AI-powered assistant made predictions an average of 5-10 minutes before alarm incidents would have happened, enabling operators to quickly implement corrective actions and avoid potential events.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 23, 2026 | Process Control
I have noted ABB’s update to its automation systems—Automation Extended and the first product incorporating it, the 800xA. ABB’s challenge for the past 25 years has been modernizing the installed base it acquired. This new platform incorporates many of the latest technologies and standards.
The news in brief:
- Latest version of Symphony Plus distributed control system (DCS) release is built to help industries accelerate modernization without disruption
- Enables secure, standardized and interoperable connectivity with system-wide OPC UA, enhanced field device integration, and ethernet backbone
- Includes Automation Extended functionality, separating control and digital environments to empower innovation while maintaining core system reliability
This is the new product:
ABB has introduced SPR2025, the latest Symphony Plus distributed control system (DCS) package release to enable modernization and efficient performance for the process and power industries. This release supports upgrades for both existing installations and new deployments.
SPR2025 helps modernize industrial operations quickly and efficiently, whether upgrading existing Harmony Rack-based systems without disruption, or deploying the latest automation innovations for new projects. Online upgrades, enhanced OS and virtualization support, powerful conversion tools, and a clear evolution path allow customers in industries such as power, water, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals and pulp & paper to implement improvements at their own pace, ensuring continual reliability and minimal risk.
ABB had explained in its earlier release that this can be described as “open” due to use of OPC UA.
Symphony Plus delivers stronger communications performance and strengthens data integration across distributed operations. With system-wide OPC UA, ethernet backbone, and support for smart field devices using the latest FDI technology, operators benefit from secure, standardized, and interoperable connectivity, enabling connection of different devices and platforms.
The benefit to users.
The inclusion of Automation Extended functionality utilizing separation of concerns architecture enables Symphony Plus customers to adopt advanced automation and digital technologies without disruption. By separating control and digital environments, customers can deploy system performance monitoring, advanced analytics, and AI-based decision support applications, while maintaining the reliability and security of core control processes.
Major updates include:
- Version synchronization and online upgrades for a more streamlined and predictable system-wide upgrade experience, reducing engineering effort and minimizing operational disruption.
- Support for latest Microsoft operating systems and multiple virtualization platforms enables multi‑OS deployment, simplifying lifecycle management across modern IT/OT environments and enhancing long-term sustainability.
- Enhanced OPC UA connectivity provides secure, standards‑based interoperability, ensuring seamless data exchange and readiness for evolving digital architectures.
- Advanced device management with Field Information Manager (FIM) accelerates device onboarding, improves diagnostics, and streamlines maintenance of instruments.
- Expanded system-wide connectivity enables the use of additional Virtual Plant Network Interfaces to optimize communications and reduce system footprint.
- Seamless evolution from Harmony Rack to SDe Series, supported by powerful automated conversion tools allow customers to preserve prior intellectual investment.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 18, 2026 | Interoperability, News, Process Control, Standards
I couldn’t make it to the February forum where the Open Process Automation Forum celebrated its 10th Anniversary. I remember meeting with Don Bartusiak, the instigator, along with Alan Johnston, Tom Burke, Dennis Brandl, and Dave Emerson to discuss standards and interoperability with the new initiative.
OPAF have come a long way. Ten years of developing consensus standards of standards, specification guides, certification testing.
Three engineers from The Wood Group talked with me yesterday bringing the update that I missed last month. Brad Mozisek, Patrick Sloan, and Alex Eaton told me that OPAS is not a science project but a real thing that users are implementing as we speak.
The organization never tried to engineer a new process automation system. They left that where it belonged—with the vendors. The goals included decoupling software and hardware, defining not only open but interoperable systems, and giving owner/operators flexibility to add best-in-class technologies without being locked into a single-vendor situation.
I missed seeing presentations by ExxonMobil, Shell, and Reliance on their projects.
Celebrating 10 years plus seeking to spread the message beyond the US, the organization has scheduled a World Tour. The first is will be March 25, 2026 at 06:00 AM (CDT) | 11:00 AM (GMT) | 16:30 PM (IST).
Speakers: Aneil Ali, The Open Group, Ravi Jagasia, R. Stahl Inc, Jacco Opmeer, Shell, Dominic de Kerf, Cargill, and Luciano Narcisi, ARC
Join us on March 25 for this webinar (hosted by The Open Group) and featuring Members of the Open Process Automation Forum. This webinar will feature European based end user organizations showcasing the business and technical milestones of their O-PAS adoption journeys.
Learn how these organizations are implementing the standard to drive innovation and eliminate vendor lock-in. Register here.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 6, 2026 | Process Control
I recently published some thoughts on Overthinking on another of my websites. It fits my thoughts on the Schneider Electric/Foxboro announcements on an “open controller.”
Elias Panasuik, Schneider Electric Sr. Director of Offer Enablement, talked with me yesterday to answer my many questions about this news.
Turns out that Foxboro SDA is essentially a new DCS. Rather than integrated into a traditional tightly integrated hardware/software solution, SDA decouples the software from hardware. This affords a user the ability to find available compute to target the application. The solution can coexist with older systems while enabling engineers to extend into a new process at the plant. What I find interesting is what underlies the thinking—this utilizes a lot of the best thinking from the IT realm used in a distinctly OT environment.
Panasuik told of customers looking for recent computer science grads to fill part of the process control function. The teams should be composed of both chemical engineers and computer science engineers—these latter conversant with things like Python and scripting and security and the like.
Developed by listening to real customer challenges; aging systems, rising costs, and the need to do more with less, Foxboro SDA decouples hardware from software to protect existing investments and enable a smooth, lower-risk modernization path. The result is simpler workflows, faster insights, and sustainable performance gains.
Key Features
• Open, Software-Defined Architecture: Foxboro SDA decouples software from hardware to deliver vendor independence and interoperability, enabling flexible, scalable architectures that simplify
• Cybersecure & Future-Ready: Foxboro SDA is built with secure-by-design principles and IEC 62443-3-3 compliance, delivering a future-ready platform that enables IT/OT convergence, AI/ML integration, and autonomous operations for Industry 4.0 and energy transition.
• Simplify Operations & Reduce Costs: Customers can lower CapEx and OpEx, streamline deployment with intuitive tools, and minimizes downtime by avoiding obsolescence and enabling predictive maintenance.
As the first software-defined distributed control system, Foxboro SDA is a validated, software-defined automation architecture for distributed control systems powered by EcoStruxure Automation Expert (EAE). It enables interoperability, rapid deployment, and fit-for-purpose configurations while maintaining high availability. The system ensures digital continuity by keeping data connected and consistent throughout the plant lifecycle—from design to production to maintenance. This enables automated workflows, better product quality, and easy integration with analytics for smarter, real-time business decisions.
Customers benefit from a future-ready upgrade path, built-in cybersecurity, and simplified operations that support IT/OT convergence and advanced technologies like AI and machine learning. Foxboro SDA provides our customers with a control solution that is unbound by hardware, engineered for agility and empowered by data. It’s more than a system – Foxboro SDA is a strategic enabler for digital transformation.
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by Gary Mintchell | Mar 4, 2026 | Automation, Process Control
I’ve written a couple of news items about ABB and Schneider Electric releasing solutions to ease migration. Both releases left much to the imagination. Schneider is talking with me this week to (hopefully) explain some details behind the news.
Meanwhile, I spotted this article “Hunting the Elusive Snipe” at Control Global by my old process control mentor John Rezabek.
Check it out. It’s a coherent plea for ideas such as from the Open Process Automation Forum to ease a problem with loss of legacy DCS upgrades. What do you think?
