The industrial world is being driven to more and more “close integration” from sensors to the cloud. Industries need to start connecting their machineries and production to collective networks so that they can achieve e.g., Industrie 4.0 compliant, data driven production.

Remote access to assets at the industrial edge improves flexibility for many workflows in diagnostics and maintenance. This was true before the pandemic, but it has become even more relevant now. And just like remote working in general, we expect the trend towards more flexible remote access to continue.

Besides a traditional controller, there is an increasing need for additional devices or applications for making optimizations. But it’s not always easy to connect quickly and also they can produce data that remains unused. Edge concepts present an interesting approach, and PROFINET technologies can support the process.

An edge gateway allowed a food processing equipment OEM to offer an effective solution for managing and accessing real-time data. Users can access operational data locally without providing access to their private machine data that is routed to the cloud for preventive maintenance monitoring.

WaterBridge turned to modern technologies for a digital transformation that’s saving a lot of money. The fast-growing company’s new SCADA system uses edge computing and MQTT to collect data from 80 sites, with 200,000 tags.

Managing industrial networks only in local control centers may not be feasible three or five years. It is therefore important to use network management software with integration interfaces such as OPC DA tags for SCADA system integration or RESTful APIs for external web services.

Economical plug-and-play unmanaged switches provide key performance features typically found only in costly and complex managed switches. Designers have options to obtain the best networking price/performance ratio by selecting unmanaged switches that incorporate key managed switch features.

Analog compute-in-memory takes advantage of high-density flash memory to enable compact, single chip processor designs. It dramatically reduces power consumption and, by reducing the barriers of cost, size, power and performance, companies can truly rethink what’s possible with AI.

Edge computing platforms offer new revenue and cost reduction opportunities for machine and equipment manufacturers. They also offer OEM machinery builders a technology pathway to developing new generations of smarter equipment that meet changing customer demands and the need for digital transformation.

With the continuing emergence of the Industrial Edge, the industrial network will play an even more central and vital role, particularly in highly connected manufacturing operations. But also the advantages of end-to-end Ethernet networking can only be fully utilized, if the network is equipped with necessary resources.