The Future of Industrial Automation

Since the turn of the century, the global recession has affected most businesses, including industrial automation. After four years of the new millennium, here are my views on the directions in which the automation industry is moving. After several years of stagnation, the industrial automation market is growing again. During the coming year, several new products and technologies will begin to emerge.

If we look at the new technologies that are coming up in the feild of Industrial Automation we have find a complete shift from traditional practices to more sofisticated and developed technology. Now we have

Industrial Wireless: Wireless is an enabling technology for end users. Application of wireless technology is broader than the current market buzz around process-focused device networks. Reliability is the key for wireless sensor networks, being addresses by combining meshing with spread spectrum technology. Again Latency, Security, Power, Throughput are the important factors contributing to the the rapid use of industrial wireless technology. As with the growing use of technology is making it imperative for the use of best technology that is available.

The spread of new wireless technology in the industrial environment will bring the ability to do things that were inconceivable before. This will bring changed work processes and new skill sets that may not simply extend from current habit-patterns. The future values of wireless in the factory and process plant are yet to be imagined. I’m willing to bet that advanced and innovative wireless products, if introduced rapidly at a breakthrough price, would sweep industrial automation markets; end-users would gobble them up. It could spark a new phase of growth that will re-energize industrial automation.


Embedded Intelligence & M2M: Used in everything from consumer electronics to industrial equipment, embedded systems - small, specialized computer systems stored on a single microprocessor - are playing a major role in the growth of the Internet and the boom of wireless communication channels. Now in industry it has more use with the use of wireless technologies. Embedded intelligence and connectivity is what M2M and pervasive computing are all about. The information coming from a device can be just as valuable, if not more valuable, than the device itself: for example, when it was installed and by whom, uptime & downtime, critical specifications, diagnostics, availability of spares, replacement alternatives, repair instructions, usage patterns, and more. All this invisible machine activity makes the information about assets, costs, and liabilities vastly more visible to managers and to the decision-making process.

M2M makes the information about assets, costs, and liabilities vastly more visible to managers and to the decision-making process. This will unleash a wave of productivity and efficiencies previously unseen. “Smart services” represents the biggest organic growth opportunity for industrial automation equipment suppliers.

Web Services & Applications Integration: Web services differ from Web applications in that they generally involve application-to-application communication, and are not intended to be accessed via a Web browser. Instead, clients can be written in any language that supports HTTP and SOAP. A client transmits a message or remote method call to a Web service, which processes the message and returns a response to the client. Web services do not usually have any sort of user interface built in, and it is generally up to the client to process input and display output.

Web delivery of process and business data enhances collaboration between work groups and multi-location plants across the enterprise. Web Services, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Enterprise Application Integration and a plethora of other software tools and services will be integrated to facilitate optimal decision-making at all levels.

Real-time Information to Boost Productivity: Real-time enterprise applications are cutting through several layers of previous inefficiency, allowing all segments of a business to interact in ways that were previously unthinkable. The goal of the real-time enterprise is to act on events as they happen. It is all the old concepts of customer-driven marketing, on-line process automation, just in time delivery, and tactical business adaptation all rolled into one. It's about getting information in and out quickly, monitoring the business as it happens, and making quick, effective, agile decisions.

Robots are Coming: The introduction of robots with integrated vision and touch dramatically changes the speed and efficiency of new production and delivery systems. Robots have become so accurate that they can be applied where manual operations are no longer a viable option. The biggest change in industrial robots is that they will evolve into a broader variety of structures and mechanisms. In many cases, configurations that evolve into new automation systems won’t be immediately recognizable as robots. For example, robots that automate semiconductor manufacturing already look quite different from those used in automotive plants.

To implementing these directions demands management and leadership abilities that are different from old, financially-driven models. In the global economy, automation companies have little choice - they must find more ways and means to expand globally. To do this they need to minimize domination of central corporate cultures, and maximize responsiveness to local customer needs. Multi-cultural countries, like the U.S., will have significant advantages in these important business aspects.

In the new and different business environment of the 21st century, the companies that can adapt, innovate and utilize global resources will generate significant growth and success.