The past year has seen a sharp increase in the digital transformation of a variety of industries, causing boardroom leaders to have heightened awareness and urgency to bolster cybersecurity across critical sectors, including industrial infrastructure.

Embracing technological innovation means that more industrial systems are being connected to each other permanently, across a broader network. But such networked connectivity has given threat actors the ability to invade systems and disrupt operations by attacking previously ignored, or unknown, potential vulnerabilities.

Compounding the urgency is the fact that many infrastructures were built and established many decades ago. Since the 1970s, most operational technology systems like electricity, water and other utilities were firmly established, linking up homes and buildings in networks which included machinery and industrial systems.

That is no longer the case today, and businesses across Southeast Asia have identified that increasing commercialization can be better supported by software and software-connected smart devices. These can go a long way in not only propping up industrial control systems for future digitization, but also represent cost and efficiency savings in the long run.

Whether it’s automotive engineering controls in Malaysia, quality engineering textiles in Vietnam, or mechanically engineering chemicals and plastics in Thailand, leading the smart, secure, innovation-driven manufacturing boom in the region is Rockwell Automation. It’s the leading solutions provider in industrial automation and is the catalyst for the digital transformation of businesses’ production operations.

Not many industrial changemakers have the experience and expertise of transforming sectors as disparate as automotive, food and beverage, life sciences, chemical, water wastewater, mining, as well as oil and gas. At the heart of these digital transformations is a host of innovations driven by automation, and leading-edge tech like artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain.

Alongside these technologies that are re-engineering processes across sectors are the next generations of intelligent, connected, industrial internet of things (IIoT) devices. These provide enormous amounts of empowering data to organizations – helping them define what are efficient processes, which machinery are due for scheduled maintenance, attending to various control systems, and showing where there are security gaps in vital infrastructure.

By automating mundane and repetitive tasks, an important cog in the next industrial revolution, technology empowers workforces to focus their efforts and time on more business-critical workloads. It comes as no surprise that the industrial automation market reached US$157.04 billion globally in 2018 and is expected to reach a value of US$296.7 billion in 2026, almost twice as much as a year ago.

SaaS to the manufacturing rescue

Ensuring cybersecurity protection and improving the risk tolerance of operational technology (OT) converges with newer connected systems of information technology (IT) on the facility floor and across the enterprise. That reality has become a Rockwell Automation speciality. And since last year, the company is expanding its software-defined vision further into operations and supply chain management.

With a growing need to emphasize production output and process resilience (while staying efficient and compliant), Rockwell has grown its capabilities. Leading the company’s vision is the Plex Smart Manufacturing Platform, a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) that combines manufacturing execution systems (MES), supply chain planning, and quality management strengths with industrial cloud software.

As part of Rockwell Automation’s software and control operating segment, Plex is speeding up digital transformation for manufacturers seeking upgrades in production systems. It offers a modern, cloud-based MES that is easy to use and maintain.

Plex’s streamlined ease-of-use and integration capabilities line up perfectly with Rockwell’s software strategy of connecting everyday manufacturing applications with the production systems of the connected enterprise. It supplies smart devices, control, and communications systems, connected by operations management software to do the heavy lifting at all levels of the industrial technology stack.

Powering its capabilities are the applications, analytics, and data that will generate operational value as the foundation of the production data platform. Ensuring that no cloud-based capability will be left behind, Rockwell has also rolled out the Fiix cloud-based, AI-enabled computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) .

Acquired by Rockwell Automation last year, Fiix brings a robust portfolio of cloud-native solutions to manage production systems from deployment to continuous oversight, providing scalability and to enhance cybersecurity, the seamless introduction of software and firmware updates.

Leveraging growing SaaS strengths with the seasoned capability of bringing IT and OT together, Rockwell Automation prepares the connected enterprise for the realities of tomorrow. By doing so, it inspires and drives bigger returns and a brighter future prospect for industry.

To learn more about the exciting digital transformation and IT/OT convergence that is overhauling manufacturing and the connected enterprise around Asia Pacific, the ROKLive Southeast Asia 2022 hybrid event will be taking place in Bangkok alongside a virtual experience on August 3, 2022. Don’t miss an update at Rockwell Automation.