NEWS MARKET OVERVIEW
Rockwell Automation and The Connected Enterprise Rockwell Automation believes the world needs to become a smarter place and offers solutions to that end through The Connected Enterprise, where products become smarter, people become smarter, and their decisions become smarter. The 117-year-old company is a major provider of industrial automation and information technology products with global sales of USD 6.69 bn for 2019. The company conducts signature events like the annual Automation Fair in the US and the region specific TechED events at other global locations to connect with and educate customers about the latest developments in the field. The hardware offering of Rockwell Automation comprises thousands of Allen-Bradley products, the software comprises numerous software suites under the FactoryTalk banner. The Connected Enterprise is a platform that brings these smart solutions together for the benefit of discrete manufacturing as well as process industries, bringing them tangible benefits like faster time to market for manufactured products, improved asset utilisation, lower total cost of ownership, and more effective enterprise risk management. That these are all tried and tested solutions is borne out by the fact that Rockwell Automation uses them in its own manufacturing facilities as part of its digitalisation transformation journey. The Connected Enterprise, according to the company, is a five-step journey: identify a desired business outcome; get an outside perspective; assemble the team; implement a pilot program; and scale for expansion. For companies who adopt the platform for their digital transformation, the outcome, based on use cases, leads to: productivity increases of 4–5% per year; waste reductions that result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings; faster time to market, which includes plants that become operational in weeks instead of months; quality improvements that result in defects being cut in half; and up to 98% on-time delivery.
MORE INFORMATION
In 2017, Rockwell Automation opened its EMEA Customer Center for The Connected Enterprise in Karlsruhe, Germany, offering customers and visitors the opportunity to receive tailored advice on smart factory subjects combined with a 360-degree view of The Connected Enterprise.
27 | Industry EMEA | November 2020
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The Rockwell Automation EMEA Customer Center at Karlsruhe, Germany. Picture: Rockwell Automation