They discovered that joining consortia and standards organizations made it easier to create open, vendor-neutral technology standards and certifications that would streamline operations while allowing for the flexibility to integrate new technology as it became available. They developed standards-based, technology-neutral platforms that speed up time to market, promote innovation, and industrialize data management thanks to the consortia.
Leading businesses are identifying opportunities for greater automation, adoption of more recent computing and communications technologies, incorporation of advanced analytics, deeper and wider use of robotics, and better supply chain integration in order to increase quality, increase business resilience, and reduce costs.
I discovered through reading industry estimates that interoperability allows for cost reductions of between 1% to 3%, or roughly $10 billion annually, in the United States.
Source: B&R Industrial Automation
With IT/OT convergence and the economic driver for interoperability comes the need for an evolution and maturation of the industry consortia and international standards organizations in the sector. The consortia and standards bodies play complementary and sometimes overlapping roles in the definition and adoption of converged IT and OT systems.
Consortia can be more dynamic, responsive and often more narrowly focused than an international standards body, and leading companies can establish communities to mature key innovations by driving consortia. One example of a leading consortium is the Open Group formation of the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF) to meet the interoperability challenge for process and chemicals industries by defining system-level specifications and architectures that draw upon the underlying technology standards across a wide range of standards bodies such as the IEEE, IEC, ISA and others.
Consortia and standards are most impactful when a critical mass of an industry identifies an area in which they can collaborate and where common benefits outweigh differentiation.
As we look into adopting Industry 4.0 in our manufacturing operations, we are increasingly looking to open, interoperable and portable technologies to help upgrade or replace our legacy systems. Therefore, investment in systems based on standards becomes critical in driving value and future-proofing transformation.
