Many manufacturing companies today have experienced mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Executives from three such companies presented at ARC Advisory Group’s 22nd Annual Industry Forum held earlier this year in Orlando.  As experienced at Ashland, Dow-DuPont, and Arkema, the acquired operations almost never have the same IT-OT architecture, technologies, and/or support infrastructures as at the existing operations.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is hot.  Billions of dollars in venture capital have been invested in AI firms, including firms that focus on solving supply chain problems.

The convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is a popular topic these days, but one rarely discussed in the context of cybersecurity.

In the wake of initiatives like Industrie 4.0 and Industrial IoT (IIoT), commercial IT continues to penetrate and influence traditional, conservative manufacturing and process industries like no other trend in the past.  This was more evident at the 2018 Hanover Fair than at previous shows.

While the imperative to improve industrial cybersecurity for both industrial control system hardware and software only started to receive significant attention around 2001, the need to do so has been known for decades.

Industrial organizations around the world are entering a period in which new digital technologies augment people and processes to an unprecedented degree. New, commoditized computing resources in the cloud (and at the edge) and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing how people work. Approaches such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industrie 4.0 have helped pave the way for digital transformation across a broad swath of industrial sectors.

Higher level automation applications have benefitted from a common software runtime environment since the 1990s when they first started to use Windows operating systems.  However, base-level automation (sensor I/O and basic control) has never enjoyed this benefit and continues to employ a wide variety of runtime software environments, mostly real-time operating systems (RTOS).

Infrastructure spans a wide range of industries including electric power generation, electric transmission & distribution, water & wastewater, transportation, etc. Many of these industries are regulated and are subject to specific cybersecurity standards established by groups like FERC, NERC, NRC, etc.

The utility industry is constantly investigating emerging technologies to stay abreast of opportunities to improve operational reliability and efficiency. Several leading suppliers and end users in the utility industry recently briefed ARC Advisory Group on their drone programs.

ARC Advisory Group recently attended the Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo, March 26-29 in Kansas City, Missouri at the Kansas City Convention Center.  The event offers a good balance of keynotes, work-shops, and technology vendor exhibits and draws a significant number of end users from municipal governments and utilities, plus researchers from academia.