Automation and the Industry 4.0 era have transformed manufacturing, fundamentally changing how we produce and receive goods. Manufacturers' pursuit of greater flexibility is driving a shift away from traditional manufacturing models towards micro-factories and modular setups, which in turn necessitates increased automation. The entire manufacturing industry and governments worldwide are focused on enhancing productivity, reducing downtime, increasing resilience and securing factories. For example, in automobile manufacturing, there is a need to support the simultaneous production of multiple models on a single factory floor to meet diverse consumer demands and optimize production efficiency. Programmable, smart manufacturing solutions enable rapid and seamless reconfiguration of production lines, allowing for the efficient assembly of various models without extensive downtime or manual adjustments.

IEC 62443 is a set of standards, developed by security experts, to provide a holistic, risk-based approach for the cyber security of Industrial Automation and Control Systems (IACS) and Operational Technology (OT) environments. IEC 62443 standards are designed for versatility, and can be applied either to components in a system or to the embedded parts within a more elaborate device (a single microprocessor, for example). However, the standards also describe how to secure entire systems and facilities, regardless of whether those facilities are factories, processing plants, building-automation systems, chemical facilities, medical systems or facilities. Learn more in our Securing Your Industrial Systems with IEC 62443 blog.

OPC UA is an information architecture designed to enable interoperability between industrial components. Based upon a deep, collective experience in the industrial sector, OPC UA was constructed upon several key pillars to ensure a long lifetime of open information exchange. Operational decisions need to be made on information, often fused from several raw data sources. Modeling information is a key part of Industry 4.0. A tool for building interoperable Industry 4.0 systems is the OPC Unified Architecture (UA). Learn more about Connecting Industry 4.0 with OPC UA in this blog.