The “Composable Software” background series is now complete. With an article in which I focus on the great opportunity that the Smart Automation platforms from Germany and Austria offer the industrial location of Germany and D,A,CH (final article in background series Composable Software). At the moment, this seems to me to be the most important innovation that the industry is developing with container software. But a lack of information about practical applications, even if they are only pilot applications, gives rise to fears that the industry will not seize this opportunity in time. It will certainly not take long for the Chinese industry to catch up.
When I started the background series in November 2022 with an introduction, container software was still something unknown to me. The software systems I had been working with for decades were and still are made of different stuff. C++, Pascal and other high-level languages were the cutting edge of technology available for CAD/CAM and the like 30 or 40 years ago.
On closer inspection of the possibilities of container software based on real-time Linux, it quickly became clear that when the industry finally catches up with the technology of IT in the cloud and the Internet, it will probably use it in production. After all, this is the most important process, the costs of which determine a producer’s potential value creation, profit and loss.
And it’s true that the first open, Linux-based platforms for industry naturally focused on automation. And this was done by automation specialists who had been stuck with a proprietary OT for decades.
I approached the providers and had the idea of putting them side by side in a separate market overview. As soon as I went online, a number of other providers got in touch. Some of them were start-ups and company spin-offs just for the platform. Two of my old customers initially thought they could keep up. But as soon as the market overview was updated for the first time, they refused to respond and dropped out. It was too OT-heavy for them. And probably too incredibly open.
The following 13 manufacturers of open platforms can currently be found in the market overview:
Bosch Rexroth with ctrlX AUTOMATION, FLECS Technologies with FLECS, German Edge Cloud with ONCITE DPS, Hilscher Gesellschaft für Systemautomation with netFIELD, KEB Automation KG with NOA, KEBA AG with Kemro X, Lenze with Lenze NUPANO, Phoenix Contact with PLCnext Technology, SALZ Automation with SALZ Controller, TTTech Digital Solutions with Ubique, TTTech Industrial Automation AG with Nerve, WAGO with WAGO OS and WAGO ctrlX OS, and Weidmüller with u-OS and easyConnect.
Their most important trade fair is no longer the Hanover Fair, but the SPS (Smart Production Solutions) in Nuremberg. They will probably all be there again to show what their platforms can do, how they are prepared for the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA), and they will certainly appear again with partners who offer interesting software on their platforms.
Hopefully there will then be one or two industrial companies that can already show what distinguishes these platforms from the old OT in practical use. In my opinion, it is currently a very important, if not the only important innovation in an industry that otherwise tends to make headlines due to the de-industrialization that has been painted on the wall. There won’t be much time left. The lead is perhaps five years. And anyone who has visited China in the last ten years and knows how quickly digitalization is in the fast lane there knows that five years is not much.
I wish the platforms and the many young container software specialists every success. Only with their commitment will containers become composable software.