Driving Digital Transformation in Industry & Cities
Published on : Tuesday 30-11--0001
ARC Advisory Group’s seventeenth India Forum for the process and discrete industries was hosted from July 4-5, 2019 in Bangalore, India. This year’s India Forum – Driving Digital Transformation in Industry and Cities – attracted over 270 delegates. The digital transformation of industry, infrastructure, and cities is under way. More than ever, digital transformation is mission critical for business health and viability, both short- and long-term. Industrial organisations around the world are entering a period in which new digital technologies augment people and processes to an unprecedented degree. New, commoditised computing resources in the cloud (and at the edge) and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing how people work. Approaches such as the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) and Industry 4.0 have helped pave the way for digital transformation across a broad swath of industrial sectors.
In 2019 we are seeing further acceleration of the convergence between IT and OT to support the ongoing digital transformation of industry and cities.
IT/OT Convergence
Departments/companies can no longer operate in silos; there has to be seamless integration between information and operational technologies (IT/OT) for any business to thrive today. But convergence is more than just a technology issue. Many end users experience organisational challenges as they merge IT and OT level responsibilities in their own organisations. The ever-increasing cybersecurity threat compounds this issue. A successful response must cover the full spectrum of people, process, and technology challenges.
Some significant benefits of IT/OT convergence:
- Reduced process variability
- Reduced energy consumption
- Improved product quality
- Improved asset health and reliability
- Incident prediction to avoid upsets, and
- Streamlined work processes.
This two-day forum was structured to disseminate information and technology effectively and provide end users, solution providers and decision makers an opportunity to network and get an overall view of the market and its requirements. The focus was on new processes, technologies and best practices across all industry verticals. The agenda was structured in such a manner that the topics covered at the forum were of relevance to all. Presentation topics covered industry and infrastructure moving towards digitalisation; automation trends, cybersecurity; smart technologies and smart cities; and several end user experiences.
What rang out loud and clear was that Digital Transformation across industries is no longer a nebulous concept or metaphorically lost in the clouds. It is a reality that integrates strategies and business processes, transforming the industrial landscape. Across industries customers have essential requirements – speed, flexibility, quality, and efficiency; and these must operate on a foundation of security. So, to meet these requirements digitalisation is an imperative. Clearly, the digital transformation of industry has the potential to contribute significantly to global economic growth.
Forum Sponsors: The success of our forum is largely due to the tremendous support we received from our supplier, industry association, and media sponsors.
Supplier sponsors included: Global Sponsors: Bentley, Mitsubishi Electric, Siemens; Silver Sponsors: Knowledge Lens, STEAG, Uniper.
Industry Association Sponsors: AIA, CABA, ODVA and The Open Group.
Media Sponsors – A&D, Automated Buildings.com, CED, Chemical Engineering, Chemical Engineering World, Chemical Industry Digest, IED Communications, IIoT World, Industrial Automation, Industrial Products Finder, Infrastructure Today, OffshoreWorld, Power, Reliability Web.com, The Record, Uptime, and World of Chemicals.
Captions
Pix1: Panelists at the Q&A Session.
Pix2: The ARC India Team.
