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New digital transformation technologies used to augment people and processes across the manufacturing industries, in the edge, cloud, etc., combined with artificial intelligence (AI), are changing the way people work and how companies perform. AI-enabled solutions are a major component of digital transformation, which touches industrial products, operations, value chains, and aftermarket services. This transformation is enabled by augmenting people and knowledge through the expanded use of IIoT sensors, current and historical data, and predictive and prescriptive analytics. While AI is currently being used for advanced data analytics and to generate new insights predictions, prognostics, or recommendations, ARC Advisory Group sees this technology playing a greater role that significantly impacts everything from workflows to production efficiency.
In last year’s Key Technology Trends report, we focused on trends which include meta-machine interface, the convergence of HMI with AR/VR; real-time smart supply chain solutions; AIoT Solutions, the convergence of artificial intelligence and IIoT; smart safety solutions that increase productivity and resilience; and virtual commissioning converging with digital twin; all of which continued to gain acceptance. For this year, in no particular order, here are some of the key technologies that ARC Advisory Group believes will increase in importance over the next twelve months or so. While far from a complete list, the technologies discussed in this report will almost certainly make an impact on industry and infrastructure in 2023, building upon the demands created for companies to thrive in a world where the only certainty is uncertainty.
There is little question that the influence on future automation architectures caused by the accelerated convergence and in some cases fusing together of operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT) will be tremendous. More and more critical functions are becoming software-based, hardware is becoming more standardized and commoditized, and virtualization is consolidating software on hardware. The industrial edge is integrating classic automation systems to become Edge Automation Platforms, which will make these applications become more IT-like with the convergence of OT and IT at the edge. Edge Automation Platforms create an IT environment that is often lacking in traditional automation systems.
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Keywords: Technology Trends, Virtualization, Edge Control, Services, Digital Thread, IT, OT, Enterprise Visualization, No Code-Low Code, Operational Resilience, ARC Advisory Group.