Manufacturing & Supply Chain

Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK) today announced a set of new capabilities for FactoryTalk InnovationSuite, powered by PTC to simplify, scale and accelerate digital transformation for industrial organizations. This news follows the recent announcement that the two companies are extending and expanding the scope of their strategic alliance following strong market momentum and widespread industry recognition of InnovationSuite. Since its original launch in 2018, InnovationSuite has successfully delivered a range of high-value solutions for the world’s largest automotive, consumer packaged goods, healthcare, oil and gas, and pharmaceuticals companies across 21 countries.

“The need for digital transformation has increased significantly as our customers accelerate innovation, maximize workforce productivity, and optimize operations,” said Arvind Rao, director of product management at Rockwell Automation. “These new capabilities combined with our industry-leading partner ecosystem helps us extend our technology and solutions leadership, meeting our customers’ needs for simplicity, scale, and domain expertise.”

FactoryTalk InnovationSuite is the industry’s first comprehensive digital transformation software suite that offers fully integrated industrial internet of things (IIoT), edge-to-cloud analytics, manufacturing execution system (MES), and augmented reality (AR) capabilities – required for the connected enterprise. InnovationSuite makes it simple to rapidly develop, operationalize, and ultimately scale innovative solutions to operations globally.

“We are pleased to be collaborating with the Rockwell Automation team on the next generation of our InnovationSuite offering,” said Don Busiek, senior vice president, strategic alliances, PTC. “As we help organizations realign their digital transformation goals to combat the current macroeconomic environment, we are confident that InnovationSuite offers the most comprehensive and effective way to optimize their people, products, and processes – empowering manufacturers to embrace their new normal.”

New enhancements to InnovationSuite were designed to help customers across a range of digital transformation priorities, including:

Accelerating IT/OT Integration 

The recently announced FactoryTalk® Edge Gateway enhances the fidelity of operational technology (OT) data with rich contextualization using the Rockwell Automation unique FactoryTalk® Smart Object capability, and packages it to a configurable data model that can be mapped to upstream information technology (IT) applications to glean enterprise insights. The company recently expanded its relationship with Microsoft to accelerate digital agility from edge to cloud by integrating this trusted, unified data model with PTC’s ThingWorx^® IIoT Solutions Platform and Microsoft Azure IoT Hub. With the acquisition of ASEM by Rockwell Automation, customers have access to a broader portfolio of industrial edge hardware and software options.

Simplifying Edge-to-Cloud Enterprise Analytics

FactoryTalk® Analytics now offers a comprehensive array of simplified data science capabilities for multiple personas—process engineers, data scientists, and citizen data scientists—and reduces analytics data preparation effort by up to 70%. New capabilities include end-to-end data orchestration with visual data modelling, open-stack connectivity, pre-built analytical templates, and self-service model deployment for a full-service customer journey.

Enabling Enterprise-Class Digital Thread 

The Rockwell Automation Digital Thread uniquely enables a collaborative workflow across product designers, production engineers, and OEM suppliers, optimizing the design process from the beginning. This approach shrinks new product development time to months from years. Further, by validating and optimizing performance in a virtual environment prior to physical implementation, commissioning time is cut in half. As data models born in the design phase are automatically used in advanced analytics applications, new powerful insights can be leveraged to achieve new levels of performance.

Delivering Value through World-class Consulting and Professional Services

With the acquisition of Kalypso, Rockwell Automation now offers a full suite of consulting, data science, technology, business process management and managed services that enable the transformation of the value chain, from product to plant to customer. With approximately 250 new InnovationSuite customers and a library of dozens of repeatable industrial use cases, the Rockwell Automation consulting and delivery services are a highly differentiated component of the InnovationSuite digital transformation journey to accelerate time to value.

Learn more about the Rockwell Automation digital transformation solution here or register to attend Automation Fair® At Home on Nov. 16-20: https://www.rockwellautomation.com/en-us/company/events/in-person-events/automation-fair.html