Best-in-Class Choose Integrated Platforms

 Manufacturing analyst firm The Aberdeen Group, of Boston, conducted an exhaustive survey of manufacturers regarding industrial control platform strategies.

The survey report and recommendations, “The Industrial Control Platform Benchmark Report: Real-time foundation for manufacturing and the enterprise,” was released in March 2006.

The report states that with millions of dollars invested in enterprise business and engineering systems and millions more invested in process control and factory automation systems, companies are looking for ways to power the enterprise with a real-time capability that capitalizes on the untapped synergies of these two domains.

At “Best-in-Class” companies, these major systems investments are being extended into integrated platforms designed to “sense, detect, analyze, and respond” in real-time. Industrial control platforms, from which real-time data emanates and through which production decisions are executed, are providing a foundation upon which forward-thinking manufacturers can proactively manage their operations.

Leading manufacturers are improving flexibility and efficiency through automation enabled by their industrial control platforms.

Better performing companies are moving more aggressively toward building industrial control platforms to achieve the real-time foundation that will enable them to improve performance. Companies should also evaluate their strategies to ensure that they effectively develop an industrial control platform strategy for mission-critical and enterprise performance and aggressively close the gap between plant automation and enterprise systems.

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