With the right smart manufacturing strategy, consumer products companies can increase their productivity and agility to ensure a profitable and responsible future. For consumer products companies, every day brings the possibility of change. From supply chain disruptions to changing regulations and volatile markets, there’s no telling what a new day will bring, and companies must be prepared. Consumer products companies cannot afford to risk their reputation as they adapt to rapid change. They must overcome key challenges and ensure agile operations to stay profitable while continuing to deliver high-quality products. Now, consumer products companies globally are embracing smart manufacturing initiatives to empower their teams and partners with actionable, data-driven insights. With these insights, companies are increasing productivity to improve profitability, becoming more agile to meet customer demand in volatile market conditions while quickly scaling successful improvement practices with AI and machine learning (ML) models across their fleet of plants. Here’s how to take action to ensure the long-term success of your consumer products operation. Adapting Manufacturing for Constant Change Enter Smart Manufacturing Using advanced technologies to enable data-driven optimisation and team collaboration, smart manufacturing drives the industrial intelligence that consumer products companies need to make the right decisions at the right time, both within plants and across the value chain. Here are the three top challenges consumer products companies face and how to overcome them by transforming plants into smart factories and connecting them into a smart manufacturing ecosystem. To stay competitive, consumer products companies must drive standardisation of work along with a consistent hierarchy of KPIs, from a single packaging line to a fleet of plants, to empower plant operators and stakeholders across functions and locations to make agile and intelligent decisions. When standardisation and collaboration intersect, brands can improve plant productivity, lower CO2 footprints, and increase customer satisfaction. Ninety-two percent of manufacturers believe smart manufacturing is the key driver in maintaining competitive advantage, while 85 percent believe smart manufacturing will transform how they make products and improve agility. Volatile market conditions and ever-expanding regulations are forcing consumer products companies to become increasingly agile and efficient to sustain a profitable business. Mergers and acquisitions and plant-level strategies often result in an array of disparate systems, creating data silos that prevent corporate users from gaining the overarching insights they need to compare plant metrics and make improvement decisions. In the meantime, companies must meet regulatory and net-zero goals, meet customer needs at price points they can afford, and continue to manufacture quality products while ensuring consumer safety compliance to protect their brand reputation. As the pressure ramps up from all sides, consumer products companies must increase productivity and profitability at scale and innovate to meet customer expectations. The question is: How? Challenge 1: Inconsistencies Across Plants Solution: Connect and Compare Plants to Identify and Scale Best Practices Many consumer products companies operate networks of distributed plants, some of which came through mergers and acquisitions. Unfortunately, the result is often disparate systems and technologies and varying levels of automation, and these silos make it impossible to discover and share best practices for elevating plant productivity and to reduce compliance risks consistently across the business. By connecting all manufacturing assets, systems, and workers into standardised solutions, companies can automate data capture, track material and production with end-to-end traceability, and enforce compliant work and quality control procedures. From there, they can bring together unified data sets into a single operations data platform for enterprise-wide access, supply chain visibility, and use with proven industrial AI and machine learning to quickly share valuable insights and scale successful advanced analytics models across factories. Take Action: Choose an industrial platform with agnostic connectivity and scalable services to connect your operations and optimise performance across the manufacturing network. Case Study: Amcor A global leader in packaging, deployed AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System across 23 of its facilities to consistently measure performance KPIs, improving cycle times by three percent and OEE by two percent. Next, Amcor assembled data from multiple plants on CONNECT to predict asset and quality anomalies with AVEVA Advanced Analytics, further decreasing downtime by 1-2 percent. Case Study: Illovo Sugar: Increased Visibility into Operations Leads to Improved OEE When Illovo Sugar, a leading producer of bulk and consumer sugar products, added new consumer packaging size and shape variations, the change resulted in inconsistent product weights and costly downtime from their form fill and seal (FFS) machines. With little reliable data to perform root cause analysis, Illovo partnered with AVEVA to deploy leading industrial data management solutions, including AVEVA PI System and used asset framework templates in AVEVA PI Server to quickly create a real-time reporting system to track performance and downtime across its 49 packing machines in five sites and three countries. These reports and AVEVA PI Vision machine dashboards helped the team isolate both human and machine performance issues so they could be addressed and improved. The result? Illovo improved the overall equipment effectiveness of their FFS packing machines by 30 percent, increased performance by up to 50 percent, and availability by up to 25 percent in just three months. Challenge 2: Shrinking Margins Require Reduced Costs Solution: Optimise Operations with AI-generated Insights and Recommendations Nothing threatens profit margins like unplanned downtime, quality losses, and waste of resources. Equipment failures and quality issues can bring plant operations to a standstill or result in waste and costs without generating revenue. In today’s market, even real-time monitoring is not enough. Consumer products companies must take a predictive, even prescriptive, approach. By using machine learning algorithms with plant data, users can receive alerts and notifications of process and quality anomalies and take quick corrective action to minimise the impact of potential issues before they become costly failures. Plant workers can be empowered with AI-generated prescriptive recommendations to optimise yield, quality, throughput, and energy usage in real time. Using a combination of machine learning and GenAI, operators can perform more complex root cause analysis to systematically cut waste and losses. Take Action: Use proven industrial AI tools that can

CyberArk’s Koh Ssu Han warns that overlooking machine identities and AI agents leaves industrial sectors vulnerable to catastrophic operational risks.

AI is moving beyond pilots to deliver measurable gains in quality, yield, and productivity, provided organisations align people, data, and purpose.

Yokogawa’s Chai Kah Ming explains why a human-centric, responsible framework is key to unlocking AI’s true industrial potential.

Industrial software leader AVEVA has announced a strategic partnership with ServiceNow, the AI platform for business transformation, to accelerate industrial digitalisation and automation across sectors. The collaboration integrates AVEVA’s CONNECT industrial intelligence platform with ServiceNow’s Operational Technology (OT) Management solutions, enabling industrial enterprises to unify data, teams, and systems for more efficient and secure operations. Combining AVEVA’s four decades of industrial software expertise with ServiceNow’s AI-driven workflow capabilities, the partnership aims to reduce unplanned downtime, optimise production, and modernise legacy processes. Customers will gain access to AI-powered analytics, real-time anomaly detection, and improved asset visibility, key enablers of predictive maintenance and sustainable performance. “Organisations must focus on AI, automation, and efficiency to stay competitive,” said Bry Dillon, SVP of Partners and Commercial Strategy at AVEVA. “This partnership empowers industrial enterprises to streamline workflows, preserve critical knowledge, and drive sustainable growth.” The joint offering also enhances cybersecurity and OT-IT convergence, providing end-to-end visibility across assets, processes, and threats. “This integration allows industrial operators to shift from reactive to proactive operations,” added  Neelima Rustagi, VP and GM for Technology Workflow Solutions at ServiceNow. “It strengthens operational resilience while supporting modern transformation goals.” The partnership underscores a growing industry shift toward AI-enabled, data-centric operations, marking a significant step forward in the evolution of industrial automation. About AVEVA AVEVA is a global leader in industrial software, sparking ingenuity to drive responsible use of the world’s resources. The company’s secure industrial cloud platform and applications enable businesses to harness the power of their information and improve collaboration with customers, suppliers and partners. About ServiceNow ServiceNow, Inc., is an American software company based in Santa Clara, California. It supplies a cloud computing platform for creating and managing automated business workflows.   Check out our latest news and articles HERE. Read current and past ISSUES of IAA. SUBSCRIBE to stay ahead of the game! Follow us on FACEBOOK and LINKEDIN!

FPT Software Partners with Nanyang Polytechnic, Providing Students with International Tech Internships The MoU signifies the deepening collaboration between Singapore and Vietnam in the IT and education sectors. ● The MoU signifies the deepening collaboration between Singapore and Vietnam in the IT and education sectors ● The FPT Global Internship Program demonstrates FPT Software’s commitment to nurturing global tech talent

Paessler AG announces acquisition of Swiss technology company ITPS AG Paessler AG, a leading provider of IT, OT, and IoT monitoring solutions based in Nuremberg, Germany, announces the successful acquisition of ITPS Group, with subsidiaries in Switzerland, the Czech Republic, and Romania as well as business activities in India. This strategic development comes in the run-up to IT-SA 2023 and marks another step in Paessler’s ambition to offer its customers a diversified range of individual features for any infrastructure and monitoring objective.

Emerson’s New I/O Interface Software Helps Future-Proof Operations, Reduce Modernization Costs up to 40% DeltaV IO.CONNECT enables manufacturers to keep existing I/O infrastructure, shorten downtime, accelerate ROI and increase flexibility of capital expenditures

The third edition of the EY Reimagining Industry Futures Study reveals that enterprises are looking to 5G to help alleviate immediate business pressures brought by the COVID-19 pandemic and related global events.

The partnership sees both companies working together to sell Centrin Data’s data centres and services in China including their Wuhan and Kunshan data centres which have a strong financial customer base.

Asia saw more cyberattacks than any other region in the past year, experiencing over 1 in 4 attacks in 2021. Financial services and manufacturing organisations together experienced nearly 60 percent of attacks in Asia.

The world is digitally transforming at a pace that is accelerating every day. Across Asia Pacific and Japan (APJ), organisations are turning to digital technology to increase efficiencies and transform customer experiences.

The more distributed its users, and the more devices that connect remotely, the greater the potential attack surface area for threat actors. Keeping this attack surface limited and protected is arguably one of the biggest challenges facing businesses today.

IBM is the first partner to offer cloud infrastructure and technical managed services as part of the RISE with SAP offering.

At its recently concluded Winterstock event, Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) unveiled Lenovo TruScale High Performance Computing as a Service (HPCaaS), delivering the power of supercomputing to organisations of all sizes through a cloud-like experience.

How time-sensitive networking is synchronising operations and driving the future of smart manufacturing.

How to manage a complex network of new and legacy equipment? Here Johan Jonzon, CMO and co-founder of Crosser shares insight into how manufacturers can successfully manage data from both new and legacy equipment.

Every digital touchpoint is exposing manufacturers to potential cyber-attacks.

As a global leader in the design and manufacture of microconnectors for the banking industry, Linxens’ products and services enable card manufacturers to easily integrate the latest innovations such as the dynamic three-digit security code or biometrics.

The Sophos Rapid Response team has so far seen AvosLocker attacks in the Americas, Middle East and Asia-Pacific, targeting Windows and Linux systems.

Hypertherm, a U.S. based manufacturer of industrial cutting systems and software, recently announced the release of Production Manager, an optional module for its ProNest advanced CAD/CAM nesting software.

The second edition of Southeast Asia’s flagship geospatial and location intelligence event grows to host fast-developing industry solutions.

Programmable logic controllers (PLCs) are at the core of almost any automated system. They’ve been used in manufacturing for decades and are known for their reliability and ability to withstand harsh operating conditions. However, embedded systems can perform the same function for a fraction of the price.

Claroty shared on 8 December 2021 its intent to acquire Medigate, a healthcare Internet of Things (IoT) Security company. The industrial cybersecurity vendor now has amassed US$635 million in funding.

Kofax, a supplier of Intelligent Automation software for digital workflow transformation, unveiled its top 10 predictions for 2022 as businesses navigate the new challenges accelerated – and in some cases, caused – by the global pandemic.

Tencent Cloud highlights commitment to global digitalisation in newly launched data center covering Brazil and other Latin American countries

EcoStruxure Automation Expert, the world’s first software-centric industrial automation system, enables hardware-agnostic automation system design to mix and match hardware from different vendors and automate them with a single software platform.

Its new Filogic solutions combine advanced Wi-Fi and Bluetooth features with the latest voice processing and power-management technologies.

ADLINK’s embedded MXM graphics modules are the first modules to use NVIDIA’s embedded GPUs based on NVIDIA Ampere architecture, bringing edge computing and embedded AI to numerous vertical markets including healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, and more.

Siemens Digital Industries Software adds NVH system prediction capabilities to its Simcenter portfolio for early design and virtual prototyping.

The Asia Pacific region mirrors trends in Europe, where 42 percent of data center operators believe there is not enough skilled labour to deliver increased capacity requirements.

Across Australia and Asia, the industrial cybersecurity company supports companies in the oil and gas, utilities, manufacturing, water, and electrical power industries, and of late, the food and beverage sector, and notably, the pharmaceutical sector for the distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.

Ennoconn to integrate its Digitalisation-as-a-Service strategy with Google’s advanced cloud solutions and services to create next-gen digital industrial products and new revenue models.

Siam Cement Group (SCG)’s Cement-Building Materials Business utilises cloud-based solution with enhanced SAP S4/HANA to streamline and enhance operations.

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill teams up with SAS, the US-based multinational developer of analytics software, to transform the drug development process to prevent infectious disease threats from turning into a pandemic like COVID-19.

49 percent of IT teams in Singapore say the attacks targeting their organisation were too advanced for them to deal with on their own.

Shure, a global manufacturer of audio equipment, launches the Stem Ecosystem, a new and cost-effective audio conferencing ecosystem which alleviates the major pains in virtual meetings currently experienced by IT professionals and everyday users, for the first time in Southeast Asia.

If organisations, regardless of their size, are not proactive in preventing such attacks, these trends are likely to continue even after the pandemic subsides.

This article looks at the Internet of Things (IoT) as an enabling technology for the Smart City.

A successful attack on critical infrastructure could disable or destroy production lines and industrial processes, leave cities in the dark or shut off critical lifesaving technologies. The repercussions are grave and difficult to bounce back from.

Lenovo Infrastructure Solutions Group (ISG) to deliver an integrated, cost effective, virtualised edge computing solution with VMware. In addition, organisations can now plan their data center cloud and edge infrastructure solutions using Lenovo Open Cloud Automation management software.

Malaysia Airlines chooses Fuel Insight and FlightPulse to transform its fuel efficiency program. GE Digital’s Aviation Software solutions help operators meet sustainability goals by monitoring and reducing fuel usage and emissions.

Service builds on IBM hybrid cloud expertise in developing connected vehicle solutions based on open-source technologies.

Funds will be deployed to explore growth opportunities in Singapore and Malaysia, and kickstart its expansion into Thailand.

AVEVA’s  Operations Control solutions are available as a single subscription for the first time, as subscription-based models are predicted to grow at a pace nearly four times that of traditional software over the next five years in the industrial automation markets, ARC Advisory Group said.

ExtraHop Networks, Inc., the leader in cloud-native network detection and response, announces on 2 September 2021, that it had more than doubled its business across the Asia Pacific region in the first half of 2021.

This article is an Interview with David Yang, Intelligent Logistics SRP Product Manager, Advantech on the implementation of an uninterrupted cold chain management solution at Taiwan’s Hypermarket Leader.

The end of 2020 will see only two percent of the world’s eight billion mobile subscriptions using 5G.  But, even though the vision for 5G is still far from being realised, the work on 6G has begun.

AA interviewed Heng Kwee Tong, head of engineering and customer solutions at SPTel, on network resiliency, managing costs, and automating in times of crisis.

With the current pandemic surpassing all countries globally, the life sciences industry is under pressure to find a vaccine through clinical trials and deliver high quality medicines.

Manufacturing supply chains are designed to save costs by moving the manufacturing process to the most efficient locations and by minimising inventory.

predictive analytics plays an important role in improving product quality and reliability across the manufacturing sector.

The current situation around COVID-19 will most probably induce a shift in the verticals that look into 5G deployment.

In combining peripheral sensors, gateways, and cloud resources, IoT applications are becoming unprecedented targets because of the number of potential attack surfaces and security vulnerabilities they contain.

Rackspace foresees three trends taking off in 2020 that could shape the C-suite’s strategy to overcome those challenges and capture the opportunities.

Technology enabling data capture and analysis, connectivity, monitoring and control is becoming the new baseline for smart buildings of tomorrow. Understanding what it is and where it is headed is critical.

With cyber-attacks being an increasing occurrence, industrial, commercial and residential installations need a strategy to guard their IT networks.

As international conflicts migrate to the digital domain, state-sponsored hackers are increasingly targeting energy grids, intending to cause outages that could disrupt the critical infrastructure of entire nations.

Flowserve uses a decentralised IT architecture bringing computing closer to the edge, and this is expected to be a prerequisite for future digital production processes.

Edge computing is growing fast, and network architectures must adapt to support this growth.

Wireless protocols to consider for your next Industrial Internet of Things application.

For businesses operating critical infrastructure systems, the risks have never been greater. There are consequences that reach far beyond business and reputational damage.

The future of the process industry is digital worldwide, under the banners of Industry 4.0 and the Internet of Things (IoT).

New retraction system for energy chains ensures fail-safe operation of robots in modern factories. Article by igus.

First used in 2009 for the digital cryptocurrency Bitcoin, blockchain technology has moved far beyond its initial adoption in the financial services sector and is being applied across many industries, including manufacturing.

The CC-Link Partner Association has created a new industrial open network specification “CC-Link IE TSN” as the next generation CC-Link IE network.

We are living in an era of digitally transforming world, networking billions of smart solutions across and producing a huge amount of data. Considering Transition to Industrial IoT Networks?

Manufacturing is rapidly entering the Fourth Industrial Revolution where the old and formerly closed environments systems meet new, connected ones.

The Promise Of The Edge In Asia’s Manufacturing Industry That is where the edge comes into play: the place where computing occurs, in between the data centre and the cloud.

Computing infrastructure is an ever-changing landscape of technology advancements. Current changes impact the way companies deploy smart manufacturing systems to leverage advancements.

Enterprises are deploying SD-WAN solutions to provide secure and direct branch connectivity to the cloud while lowering overall WAN costs. By Rami Rammaha, Director of Product Marketing, Silver Peak.

For industries that rely on physical assets, smart connectivity enables vastly superior performance by unlocking value from digital transformation. At the heart of Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) are Smart Connected Assets and the evolution of APM 4.0.

Of the more than 700 IT decision makers surveyed for the report by 451 Research, 56 percent say at least a quarter of their data centre and cloud capacity is already supporting IoT. By Martin T. Olsen, VP of Global Edge and Integrated Solutions, Vertiv.

IAA spoke with Cynthia Lee, Regional Director, ASEAN, CyberArk, about the cyber threat landscape in the region and why privileged accounts are important in cybersecurity.

In today’s world, cybersecurity is necessary to ensure critical automation systems remain safe and fully operational. However, implementing cybersecurity controls is a very technical and labour intensive task. Article contributed by Honeywell.

Industrial control systems (ICS) underpin individual businesses and critical infrastructures around the world. They maintain control of power stations and nuclear plants, water distribution systems and manufacturing sites – and today, they are routinely targeted by cyber attackers.

SCADA systems have been part of the industrial and utility landscape for many decades. For pipeline SCADA systems, the wide area coverage and operation of processes in remote locations provide a number of unique cybersecurity issues. By Kevin L. Finnan, System Consultant, Yokogawa Corporation of America.

Every industrial company today is discussing the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT). Experts say that IIoT enables companies to engage technology and expertise more than ever before. Managers know that instruments and systems they buy can be equipped with digital technology to gather real-time data at every measurement point. By Susan Wang, Wireless Manager, Asia Pacific, Emerson Automation Solutions.

Today’s manufacturing environment is facing the challenge of rapid acceleration in both the speed-of-business and in the proliferation of new digitised technologies. These trends are impacting all of society and most workplaces. The amount of change taking place is breathtaking. Innovation is making its presence felt at all levels. Consider the fact that 48 percent of the organisations currently listed as Fortune 500 companies were not on the list in the year 2000. Innovators have displaced traditionalists and those that continue to succeed do so in large part thanks to their ability to reinvent themselves.

The solution uses Ixia’s IxNetwork to enable network equipment manufacturer partners to self-certify their products with VMware NSX in a range of network topologies, helping them save significant costs while improving time-to-market.

Singapore: EOS, a technology supplier in the field of industrial 3D printing of metals and polymers, has joined the MindSphere World e.V. (registered association) that promotes the open, cloud-based IoT operating system MindSphere. This organisation comprises companies including Siemens, Festo and Kuka. EOS is to chair the organisation’s Additive Manufacturing work group.

Empowered with machine learning capabilities, FactoryTalk Analytics learns the process and looks for trends in the data, proactively presenting users with insights before an issue arises.

Against the backdrop of an ‘on-demand’ economy, Asian businesses are finding it necessary to provide better, more compelling and personalised customer experiences. By Ryan Goh, VP and GM, Zebra Technologies Asia Pacific

Machine-to-machine integration and the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) are reinventing manufacturing as we know it, giving birth to the Smart Factory that is connected, intelligent and aware – enabling newfound levels of productivity and predictability. By Vincent Tang, regional VP, Asia, Epicor Software.

Autonomous cars are set to totally transform our driving habits but they could also have a major impact on society, from city planning to mobility. By Ludovic Lassauce, Director, Business Development, Business Collaboration, Mobility and IoT at Tata Communications

Since the technology first emerged in 2008, blockchain has quickly become synonymous with the digital currency bitcoin and the financial sector. Blockchain’s association with bitcoin stems from its role as a foundational concept in the original bitcoin paper authored by Satoshi Nakamoto. In his paper, Nakamoto proposed a peer-to-peer electronic payment system, and the blockchain is used to secure bitcoin transactions without the need for a centralised governing body or trusted intermediary, such as the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), or a bank.

The term ‘digital twinning’ is gaining in popularity with the advancement of Industry 4.0, which is seen as the next phase of the digitisation of the manufacturing sector. By Terri Hiskey, VP Product Marketing, Manufacturing, Epicor Software

Microsoft, Linux, Google, and Apple started rolling out patches addressing design flaws in processor chips that security researchers named Meltdown and Spectre. Contributed by Trend Micro

Where are the enablers for growth in 2018 likely to come from? Here, we identify the top trends that Epicor believes will be central to success in the upcoming year. By David York, regional VP, UK and Ireland, Epicor Software

Thanks to advances in technology, infrastructure frameworks, and growing cloud adoption, companies no longer need to rely exclusively on data scientists to reap the benefits of Machine Learning. By Jason Bissell, Senior VP and GM, APAC, Talend

A security researcher has revealed serious flaws in the way that most contemporary Wi-Fi networks are secured. By David Glance, Director of UWA Centre for Software Practice, University of Western Australia

David Hughes, Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Board, Silver Peak shares his thoughts on what 2018 holds for the Cloud infrastructure market.

Digital technology, automation and the Internet of Things are dramatically improving manufacturing quality and reducing costs. By Cynthia Lee, Regional Director, ASEAN, CyberArk

What are the tipping points that could push Industry 4.0 in the direction of becoming a fully realised concept? By Jonathan Wilkins, marketing director of obsolete industrial parts supplier, EU Automation

Data is the new battleground. For companies, the situation is clear – their future depends on how quickly and efficiently they can turn data into accurate insights. By Mike Tuchen, CEO, Talend

Honeywell General cyber security protects against cyber-attacks that compromise IT systems where the consequences might involve the loss of intellectual property, databases or loss of operation. What follows are 12 steps that should be performed to minimise the risk of an industrial cyber security attack. By Thomas Ayral, Cyber Security Specialist, Honeywell Industrial Cyber Security

A privileged account security solution is designed to be a complete solution to protect, monitor, detect, alert, and respond to privileged account activity. Privileged accounts represent the largest security vulnerability an organisation faces today. By Jeffrey Kok, Director of Pre-Sales, Asia Pacific and Japan, CyberArk

In an exclusive interview with Industrial Automation Asia, Eric Duffaut, Chief Customer Officer, Software AG explained…

As the number of connections increases through the adoption of the Internet of Things (IoT), security becomes a central issue to protect data. By Forward-Looking Threat Research (FTR) Team, Trend Micro

Modernising pipeline operations can enhance flexibility, data management and security. By Jason P. Wright, PlantPAx Business Manager, Rockwell Automation

With the rise of Industrial Automation (IA) in manufacturing, legacy Operational Technology (OT) has become increasingly outdated. The Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is paving the way for industrial organisations to harness the latest technologies and remain competitive in a rapidly evolving industry. By Michael Fyson, Regional Sales Director for ANZ & ASEAN, Stratus Technologies

This article offers a look into the factory of the future and presents fundamental steps that every manufacturer should take now to prepare for seamless integration when the Internet reaches the factory. Contributed by marketing department, Microscan systems

With industry 4.0 increasingly upon us, the enterprise must ensure their ERP systems are compatible with new standards. By Sabby Gill, executive VP, International, Epicor Software Corporation

An ABB manufacturing execution system raises productivity for DSM Nutritional Products. By Matilda Steiner, ABB

Understanding the proper way of implementing a Manufacturing Execution System (MES) in the context of Industry 4.0 is important to gain the most benefits. By Sascha Graef, MPDV Asia

Building a resilient network infrastructure is an important element of any industrial communication system.

Creating a small security tracking solution does not mean asset tracking is about to go mainstream.

RFID technologies are growing in prominence with the rise of smartphones and technologies such as NFC. IAA interviewed.

As Internet-connected devices continue to increase, so will the need for more data centres. Industrial automation is as important as ever in ensuring the efficient operation of these data centres. By Patrick Flynn, group leader of sustainability, IO.

Connectivity is evolving and with that new challenges are emerging. With greater connectivity, security.

The challenges for future-proof Industrial Communication Networks will be discussed. By Andreas Rehm.

The top 10 recommendation for plantwide ethernet/IP deployments will be given. By Du Xiaohan, Business Manager.

While in recent years the M12 connectors had only been used for connections on the sensor-actuator level the range of applications meanwhile has extended itself to data transfer and power supply.

Cables can degrade if they are not maintained and properly cared for. Cable carriers are designed to guide and protect cables and hoses on moving machinery, ultimately extending the cables life.

Initially introduced in the aerospace and automotive sectors connecting CAD with engineering and manufacturing requirements in order to speed up product development cycles as well as managing quality and cost, PLM is now a ‘strategic business approach to solving the problem of managing the complete set of product definition information,’ as defined by CIMdata.