The industrial sector is flooded with claims about fully autonomous operations, but for manufacturing executives, separating marketing from operational reality is critical. Despite the billions projected for artificial intelligence this year, the factory floor remains a complex, physical environment that does not easily bend to software trends. Only 20% to 25% of manufacturers have reached […]
Read more →
Manufacturing executives today are navigating a severely stressed business environment. Facilities face margin pressures, patchy demand recovery, extreme energy volatility, and supply chain disruptions. Compounding these challenges is a massive skilled labor shortage: more than 30% of maintenance and operator positions remain unfilled. Equipment reliability has become a top-level business priority because it eats directly […]
Read more →
Manufacturers are investing in AI to improve maintenance, quality, production visibility, asset performance, and decision-making. Most of these use cases pull data from sensors, historians, machines, SCADA systems, MES platforms, engineering workstations, and other operational sources. Some of that data moves to enterprise systems, some to cloud platforms, some to analytics tools or AI models. […]
Read more →
I’ve been involved in distributed and embedded computing for about 30 years now, and one of the things I see again and again in the energy sector is how a successful AI pilot fails to become a successful deployment. The model works. The proof of concept proves what it was designed to do. Leadership approves […]
Read more →
Most industrial AI systems on the factory floor are limited to monitoring: they read sensor data, populate dashboards, and trigger alerts without ever sending an instruction back to the machine. Coreflux, a company based in Porto, Portugal, co-founded by CEO Hugo Vaz and CTO Paulo Mota, has embedded an AI agent directly inside its MQTT […]
Read more →
For decades, the promise of the digital factory was simple: more data equals more efficiency. Yet, as discussed at the ARC Industry Leadership Forum 2026, many manufacturers find themselves trapped in a productivity paradox. Despite having more sensors and dashboards than ever, teams are spending more time reconciling information than building products.To break this cycle, […]
Read more →
A predictive maintenance system flags that a motor will fail in three weeks. What happens next usually involves three to four people, spans up to two weeks, and touches the CMMS, ERP, workforce scheduling, and production planning systems before a single wrench turns. Agentic AI compresses that entire coordination chain into roughly 30 seconds. During […]
Read more →
Agentic AI will bring thousands, potentially tens of thousands, of AI agents to the factory floor. Every one of them will need data, and not all data. Agents do not perform well when exposed to massive amounts. They need focused, usable data scoped to their task. So, how much should manufacturers let them do without […]
Read more →
Software-defined automation moves control logic from dedicated PLCs onto industrial PCs and standard server hardware, while the physical equipment, inputs/outputs, drives, and motors, stays on the shop floor. Engineering changes too, from predefined toolchains with fixed workflows to an open system where teams connect Siemens, third-party, and OEM tools through APIs and a package management […]
Read more →
At an IIoT World Energy Day 2026 panel on scalable edge solutions for modern grids, Andrew Foster of IOTech Systems, Cody Falcon of ABB, Brenna Wood of EDF Power Solutions North America, and Janko Isidorovic of Fluence Energy discussed what distributed energy resource fleets require before edge AI can produce useful results. The panel, moderated […]
Read more →
Most manufacturers face the same starting point: brownfield operations with equipment from multiple vendors and departments that work toward different objectives. The scope of what needs connecting creates enough resistance that many companies never take the first step. At Hannover Messe 2026, Thomas Roehrl of Siemens described this as the biggest mistake in platform deployment: […]
Read more →
At an IIoT World Manufacturing Day panel on data sovereignty and industrial AI, Peter Sorowka of Cybus and leaders from MaibornWolff, SCHUNK, and Schwarz Digits outlined how competitive advantage in manufacturing is forming well before AI reaches full deployment. Many manufacturers are waiting for clearer AI winners, the right platform, the right models, the right […]
Read more →