It would be simple to say “innovation” is the buzzword du jour. The reality, however, is that innovation has been the predominant buzzword for business over much of the past decade, easily surpassing terms like “collaboration,” “synergy” and “paradigm.”

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of innovation’s tenacity is that it started being most heavily used a year or two before the economy fell off the cliff (or was pushed, depending on your perspective) in late 2008. Before the recession, it was a mantra for business and product differentiation. Today, while the term maintains its differentiation meaning, it has morphed into a core survival tactic.

If there is one facet of innovation that seems to go generally unobserved, it is that innovation does not always equal complexity. More often than not, it means exactly the opposite.

Though Apple has shown the business world for decades that hiding complexity behind a simple-to-use interface is the way forward, most companies remain fixated on the complexity aspects of innovation.

“The more complexity there is in the market, the more that something simpler stands out,” said John Maeda, president of the Rhode Island School of Design, in his book “The Laws of Simplicity.” A recent survey by Automation World of its subscribers shows that Maeda’s conclusion is accurate in the eyes of the technology end user.

When asked: “When it comes to the automation technology you apply in your job, which aspect do you consider to be the most innovative?” sixty percent of respondents chose ease of implementation or ease of connectivity. Their other choices were reduced energy consumption, high levels of precision and reduced footprint.

Given choices that directly save money and precious space on the factory floor, or that enable the attainment of higher quality, ease (i.e., less complexity) still wins the day. And not just in terms of simply being preferred, but in being viewed as truly innovative.

Ethernet gets the nod
In response to the survey question: “What do you consider to have been the most innovative development in automation technology over the past 10 years?” more than a third of the respondents agreed that integration of Ethernet at the system and device level was the most innovative automation technology they had seen. Most interesting was the high level of agreement — 41 percent — this option received for a question that featured an “other” option.

Responses in the “other” category were, not surprisingly, widely scattered over an array of suggestions. A few of the “other” suggestions most widely cited included software advances, retrofit replacements, faster processors and even several write-ins citing “all of the above.” The options given were: high-precision control, mobile and remote connectivity, industrial wireless devices and integration of Ethernet.
Mobile and remote device/system connectivity was the next highest vote getter after Ethernet, garnering nearly 25 percent of responses.

Of particular interest when reviewing the responses to this question about the most innovative development in automation over the past decade comes from consideration of the survey’s respondents. Of the more than 225 respondents to the survey, the division between discrete and process industries was basically 50/50, with 19.8 percent in the batch processing industries, 30.8 percent in continuous processing, and 49.3 in discrete manufacturing.

This even division of responses between discrete and process industries indicates that the view of Ethernet as the most innovative automation advance over the past decade is a shared perception across both industry sectors. A closer inspection of the survey data shows that 62 percent of those citing Ethernet as the most innovative automation technology work in the process industries.

RELATED CONTENT: Click here  to read what Automation World readers think are the most innovative automation technologies they’ve seen in the past year. 

Innovation predictions
Asking survey respondents to look into the future and offer their thoughts on the future of automation technology innovation is always captivating. Some of this year’s responses offered some intriguing possibilities.

For example, Danny Rich of Sun Chemical Corp. (Parsippany, N.J.) thinks that fiber optics will be used to replace all wires in a facility to address NEMA explosion issues.

Totally new properties and capabilities will be introduced into automation technologies with the continued development of nano materials and machines, says Eugene C. Clark of the Kohler Co. (Kohler, Wis.).
The use of wireless technologies and integration interfaces, according to Rick Rice of Crest Foods (Edmond, Okla.), will one day be used to link “dumb” devices on a production line to create a complete control solution and data collection ...