The terms Operational Technology (OT) and Information Technology (IT) stood for strictly separate worlds in the manufacturing industry. Then there was the theory that there would be a convergence. Most recently, there was even talk of a merger. Instead, something else is probably happening: the terms are becoming obsolete. This is because composable software builds a data bridge between hardware and software and is not limited to either OT or IT. It will be exciting.
OT stood for the proprietary, hardware-specific, often embedded software for machines and devices with programmable logic controllers (PLCs) as the core, but also for the systems used for visualization and monitoring. IT stood for monolithic standard software systems for controlling business processes such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) or Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES).
The traditional automation pyramid already shows in its hierarchy and simplification that there is something wrong with the relationship. However, the smaller, more highly valued area of IT determined enormous investments for a long time and had its own management. OT, on the other hand, was not even considered part of IT.
The cloud comes to the shop floor
What has happened? Microservice architectures and container clusters are now bringing the technology that has established itself in the consumer world with the cloud, AI and smartphones to the machine and the engine. How is that possible?
The analyst firm Gartner coined the term “composable enterprise” in 2022. To achieve the necessary flexibility and agility, a company will in future consist of small, largely independent satellites. In addition to a central office, which will primarily be for the management of shared resources. (See also the latest book by Prof. August-Wilhelm Scheer “Composable Enterprise: agile, flexible, innovative“).
As a result, manufacturing companies need to make their factories just as digital and smart as their corporate organization. Gartner predicts in the same study that by 2025, more than 60 percent of all new MES software will consist of open, easily composable components.
In reference to “Composable Enterprise”, I have coined the term “Composable Software” for corresponding software. (See the background series “Composable Software” on this portal).
However, the decisive factor in the current trend is not the technology that makes it possible or what it is called. The decisive factor is the added value that the industry can achieve with it. It lies in the possibility, finally found with real-time-capable Linux, of using digital data from products and production directly to monitor and control industrial processes. Including the manufacturing process.
Special route OT: No longer necessary
There was a good reason for OT’s special path. None of the computer operating systems were real-time capable. Until a few years ago, this also applied to open Linux. But then the Linux developer community made it happen: now anyone can create a real-time-capable runtime environment with Linux. And the situation in the manufacturing industry has changed abruptly. Because real-time – or at least near-real-time – is an absolute must for machines, drives, control systems and production facilities. Not for everything, but for everything that has a direct impact on physical production.
The special path of PLC-based automation from the 1970s onwards has had great benefits. The global leadership position of the manufacturing industry in Central Europe, especially in mechanical and plant engineering and the automotive industry, was due to the special quality of this automation. It has spared us a Rust Belt like in the North East and factory ruin landscapes like in all parts of the USA.
The new possibilities of microservice-based software now offer a double opportunity for a new leap in the manufacturing industry:
- It frees the industry from the countless obstacles between proprietary software in heterogeneous machine parks.
- It makes the industry independent of the large computer and IT providers, and it also gives its own customers the freedom to develop their own software.
Revolution with a late bloomer – Industry 4.0 is now
With open, Linux-based solutions, industry in German-speaking countries has now begun to digitalize the automation of production. Smart automation is the practical realization of the great promises of Industry 4.0.
This has given rise to a separate market of open, Linux-based platforms. It is the subject of the “Smart Automation” market overview and numerous news items and interviews here on Industrie-Digitalisierung.
The current providers and their platforms in the market overview are:
Bosch Rexroth with ctrlX AUTOMATION, Contact Software with Elements for IoT, FLECS Technologies with FLECS, German Edge Cloud with ONCITE DPS, KEBA AG with Kemro X, Lenze with Lenze NUPANO, Phoenix Contact with PLCnext Technology, SALZ Automation with SALZ Controller, Siemens with Industrial Operations X, TTTech Industrial Automation AG with Nerve, WAGO with WAGO OS and WAGO ctrlX OS, and Weidmüller with easyConnect and u-OS.
More than ten years after the launch of the Industry 4.0 initiative (and my first book with this title), the industry is in the midst of implementation. For the launch, it has chosen precisely the field in which the greatest and fastest added value can be achieved through digitalization: production itself. Including the services that can now be offered in the Internet of Things (IoT).
Even before Linux became real-time-capable, the Industry 4.0 initiative had driven forward the standardization of software architectures in industry. In particular, the Asset Administration Shell (AAS) is currently becoming the communication standard for and with industrial devices to a certain extent – and not just in German-speaking countries. With the AAS, there is now also something like an API for machines, devices, drives and controllers, regardless of whether they are in the cloud or not. And so every industrial product can have an API as a thing in the Internet of Things.
„All in One“ is out!
In recent decades, IT has been geared towards covering as many additional functionalities as possible, starting from the original area of application, in order to gain an ever larger customer base. Providers were not very interested in the interoperability of their own software with software from other manufacturers. In some cases, they have even made a name for themselves by obstructing this as much as possible and making it as expensive as possible for all parties involved.
Even when platforms were mentioned in the past, this usually meant the platform of a provider on which the customers were more or less dependent and on which as much as possible should run. For IT departments in the industry, this meant focusing a large part of their work on keeping their own adaptations to and interfaces between the systems of different manufacturers running across all release changes.
Now comes open, composable and cloud-native software that is no longer based on a single platform or a single main program.
The new apps function with a high degree of independence. It is not necessary to shut down a larger environment to update such software. It was essential for the old software.
If the providers of large IT systems want to have a future and not just rely on survival with the help of maintenance contracts, they need to open up to composable software, cloud technology, container apps and API data exchange.
Some of the major providers are making such changes. In some cases, they are even trying to redesign their systems as a whole and make them composable.
On the other hand, traditional machine and plant manufacturers have to consider how to convert their current products to the open system world. This may mean that their software specialists are tied up for some time replacing proprietary PLCs with their own Linux-based software. Or you can make your own hardware future-proof by switching to a standardized runtime environment.
Both sides of the old OT and IT are affected by the upheaval in automation. No one can continue as before without jeopardizing their competitiveness.
For IT, this marks the end of the decades-long trend towards an ever-increasing range of functions and programs on a monolithic basis, into which all acquisitions had to be integrated somehow. And in industry, the usually rather hopeless attempt by IT departments to integrate the implemented solutions with each other and use them effectively is coming to an end.
For automation providers and machine manufacturers, composable software opens up a world of digital services for production and based on industrial products, for which these companies are increasingly becoming software providers themselves.
Opennes is in!
The new Smart Automation market overview, which I have set up with 12 providers, operates in this large field of what can perhaps rightly be described as digital transformation. I am convinced that a very lively market is growing here. It is no longer primarily about selling new tools and products, but also about the opportunity to develop a modern, future-oriented, sustainable and data-driven industry.
Example Bosch Rexroth and ctrlX AUTOMATION: a year ago, a competitor, namely the automation specialist WAGO, also became a partner. In addition to the WAGO OS platform, WAGO now also offers a WAGO ctrlX OS platform. And as the name suggests, it runs on Bosch Rexroth’s open operating system. In July 2024, it was announced that Siemens Energy is relying on ctrlX CORE as a controller for orchestrating decentralized energy generation systems and connecting them to the central cloud. While Siemens itself is also one of the platform providers in Smart Automation. Coopetition becomes normal.
Example German Edge Cloud (GEC) and ONCITE DPS: Rittal – like German Edge Cloud, a company of the Friedhelm Loh Group – has designed the production in the new factory for small enclosures in Haiger with the new GEC software ONCITE DPS. The result was unusual connectivity and transparency of the heterogeneous machines and devices used in the production halls. At the same time, ONCITE DPS was the first system ever to be certified by the automotive supplier network CatenaX. And it is now also the basis for energy monitoring and other applications in production and for the RiZone OTM Suite software for managing data centers.
My market overview includes the platforms that I know. I would be grateful for information on other providers who may not be familiar with my site. Participation in the market overview is free of charge. To participate, I open access to the online survey on which it is based.
I hope this article contributes to a broader discussion about the new development. This seems more meaningful and purposeful to me than further highly scientific debates about the supremacy of ERP over PLM or vice versa. It’s no longer about how to get everything to work with the old software. It’s about using the new technology to create Industry 4.0.
Production hall at the Rittal plant for small enclosures in Haiger: The huge dashboards show the status of production on the various lines in real time. (Image Rittal)