The move toward Industry 4.0 drives a new trend in smart factory infrastructure. Manufacturers are transiting to smart connected factories and extending Industrial IoT ecosystems across factories, plants, and supply chains. Efficient and flexible data analysis are critical for production systems and plant assets. As the trend of Industry 4.0 accelerates, metrology and quality control need to keep up with the latest digital trend. Coordinate measuring machines are critical machines in manufacturing process, which captures geometric measurements or surface conditions of a workpiece. Continued technology advancements now enable coordinate measuring machines to be integrated into the shop floor and interoperate with other inspection technologies throughout the manufacturing process.

The 11th Asian Downstream Summit in Singapore, hosted by the Energy Market Authority, attracted over 800 attendees, 80 speakers, and 28 sponsors and exhibitors. ADS, considered the anchor oil and gas event of the Singapore International Energy Week (SIEW), provided a platform for networking, seeking partnerships, and showcasing technologies through relevant case studies. The three-track agenda focused on core refining & petrochemical technologies, innovation, asset management, energy efficiency, Industry 4.0 and digital transformation in the oil & gas sector. KBC (a Yokogawa company) held a readiness assessment workshop to help people identify the gap between their own organizations and the industry leaders; in particular the characteristics behind the digital leadership and change management practices of other organizations as these apply to digital transformation.

Successful endeavors traditionally start with a clear business plan that has a defined expected outcome. Industrial IoT has no such luxury. Though the “talk” suggests grand opportunities, many of the success stories so far have largely been narrowly focused and – to a certain degree - proprietary. While this is not really what IIoT is about, there are many things we can do to put it back on track.

At Germany’s SPS trade fair in late November, the OPC Foundation announced its long-anticipated plans to extend OPC UA down to the field level. This announcement amounts to a breakthrough after a year-long stalemate that threatened to divide the industry into two competing camps.

ARC Advisory Group held the company's sixteenth India Forum for the process and discrete industries, from July 5-6, 2018 in Bangalore, India. This year’s ARC India Forum, Digitizing and Securing Industry, Infrastructure, and Cities, attracted over 250 delegates. The Forum session topics covered industry and infrastructure moving towards digitization; automation trends, cybersecurity; smart technologies and smart cities; and several end user experiences. At the event, Ankur Goyal, Head – Strategic Business Development (Industry 4.0), Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, presented an end user presentation entitled, “Unleashing the Potential of Industry 4.0.”