An Evolution In Process Control

In the September 2022 issue of Process & Control magazine, Emerson’s Vice President of Technology, Claudio Fayad, writes about how the distributed control system is evolving to meet the needs of Industry 4.0 and beyond. For decades, prevailing wisdom was focused on keeping operational technology (OT) separate from the internet. However, in recent years most organizations have come to realize that the connectivity of all OT systems to the internet, along with cloud connectivity, are necessary to deliver Industry 4.0 performance benefits not just across the plant, but across the enterprise. This new focus on connectivity has required increased collaboration between information technology (IT) and OT, which, in turn, has increased scrutiny on IT/OT convergence and its associated technologies, including the distributed control system (DCS).