Industrial comms in the IoT era — where are we heading?

The connected enterprise, Industry 4.0, cloud services, big data and IoT are on the tip of everyone’s tongue at present, but what is the reality behind the hype, and what impact will they have on the future of industrial communications and networks? These questions will form the basis of the inaugural Future Networks Forum at the ACI Connect conference being held at Sydney Showground on 12 August.

The forum will host expert speakers from four of the main industrial network protocol groups — PROFINET & Profibus Australia, EtherCAT Technology Group, FieldComm Group and ODVA.

Below are some of the questions that will be covered in the Future Networks Forum at ACI Connect:

• What challenges and opportunities does the connected IoT future bring to the industrial communications environment and how is technology adapting as a result?
• Can IT and engineering management work together at the network planning stage — and what are the benefits of better collaboration?
• How will advanced network design better enable advanced manufacturing?
• What is the future for wireless networks?
• What impact will external technology and economic forces have on future network design and planning?

The forum will be moderated by What’s New in Process Technology/ProcessOnline editor Glenn Johnson and will culminate in a Q&A panel discussion. Delegates will have an opportunity to pose questions to the experts, and add their own comments and thoughts on this increasingly complex, and important, area.