IEN: What are the major concerns facing providers of automation technology and related products and services in the next few years? How can they be addressed?

Lewarne: One major concern for providers is how to enable users to take advantage of newer technologies, while not requiring an overhaul of their existing infrastructure. This need for co-existence of systems is often overlooked by providers, who too often force users to obsolete functional systems in order to attain the benefits of newer technology. A real opportunity exists for providers who can introduce products based on new technologies that coexist with existing automation systems, hence extending the useful lives of those systems. Explicit consideration of coexistence and migration very early in the product design cycle can yield real benefits for the user, and hence the provider.

IEN: What innovations are in store in automation systems, equipment & components, and software?

Lewarne: There are tremendous innovations happening in industrial automation software today. Providers are introducing new products and new versions of existing products faster than ever. While this is a good trend in that it provides more tools and options for users, the tradeoff is the myriad of systems and applications that must be built and maintained over time.

There are several important trends that will drive innovation in industrial automation software. First, as automated control systems become more and more integrated with supply chain, maintenance, ERP, and other software in the organization, the ability to centrally manage and maintain applications becomes critical. Next, the ability to enforce engineering standards across an organization, be it a single site manufacturer or a global manufacturer, facilitates the integration effort and more effectively utilizes precious engineering resources within that organization.

Also, manufacturers are finding it necessary to rapidly respond to their markets, driving rapid changes in the manufacturing processes themselves. Finally, users are driving the development of standards for information exchange and integration. These trends have the effect of driving innovation in software around application development, change management, standards support, and maintenance. This represents a change from innovations of the past that were focused on individual features and functions.

IEN: What are the sector's R & D hot spots?

Lewarne: Software R & D is now largely focused on facilitating the integration of existing hardware and legacy software systems with higher level business and decision support systems. Plant Intelligence is an excellent example of this. The concept behind Plant Intelligence is to layer on top of existing hardware and software systems a manufacturing information system capable of collecting and storing all pertinent data and providing the tools to visualize and analyze the data. The result of the analysis is the ability to take action to optimize the manufacturing process, and verify the results. This cycle then begins again.

Many users are reaping great benefits from the application of Plant Intelligence principles, enabling them to look at the data provided by their automation systems in new ways and find opportunities for improvement that weren't easy to identify before. All of this has the effect of increasing their return on investment from those legacy systems.

IEN: Will wireless become more prevalent?

Lewarne: Wireless will become more prevalent and will be driven by a number of factors. First, as automation system users become more mobile, the devices and connections they use to interface with systems have to become mobile as well. This implies the growth of mobile platforms, such as tablets and PDAs, and widespread adoption of wireless networks. Second, as manufacturers find the need to rapidly change manufacturing processes in support of their markets, the ability to cut down the costs associated with reconfiguration of lines and work cells by not having to change network cabling will help them be more competitive. Network systems vendors are beginning to address the industrial market with network products, including wireless, that are designed for the industrial environment.

IEN: How about the Internet?

Lewarne: The Internet will continue to play a vital role in automation systems. By providing the core infrastructure of a public wide area network, the Internet becomes critical in information exchange ranging from e-commerce, to supply chain management, to equipment maintenance, etc. As such, the role of the Internet cannot be underestimated in importance and will soon be as necessary and ubiquitous on the plant floor as electricity and telephones.

IEN: Will collaborative manufacturing play a role?

Lewarne: Collaborative manufacturing systems (CMS) are already gaining momentum in the marketplace. There are currently a wide variety of players with various specialties. CMS is a critical lynchpin in the efforts to integrate with ERP and supply chain. It is also critical to create a context for process data. That is, while historians can gather all process data and store it, CMS systems are necessary to put that data in the context of a specific customer order, or batch, or lot.

IEN: Have you seen much progress in integrating the front office, extended enterprise (logistics, etc.) and automation? Please explain.

Lewarne: Much work has been done around EAI. Indeed, customers are driving standards such as S95 to address this issue specifically. So there has been much done, and much is being done current around this critical issue.