Open Automation: Where Things Stand in 2024

With plenty of activity at Open Process Automation Forum and UniversalAutomation.org, the pieces are slowly falling into place to develop an ecosystem of products that support multi-vendor automation architecture and standards.

For decades, the OT world has had to navigate the challenges of proprietary systems and  vendor lock-in as they pined for solutions modeled on the open standards and  interoperability precedents that are so well-established in the IT domain.

While the tide has not exactly turned, there are signs that open automation standards and  technologies are starting to fall in line. Evolving standards work, numerous industry  partnerships and new vendor technologies are coalescing to raise manufacturers’ hopes for  a more flexible environment that is simpler and less costly to manage than conventional  automation platforms while also more appealing to a younger generation of software and  process automation engineers.

Read full article