Top 10 Automation & Control Trends for 2019

By Bill Lydon, Editor, Automation.com

The pace of technological change in the automation industry seems to be accelerating as we head into 2019, driven by innovations developed for Internet of Things and general computing. In last year’s Bill’s Top 10 Automation & Control Trends for 2018 - A Year of Technology Driven Change, I shared the view that 2018 would look to bring structural and architectural changes that would be disruptive to organizations and suppliers that resist change. As we enter the new year, there are indeed signs of disruption in various industrial automation niches, leading to a prominent question for 2019.

Question: Is the industrial automation industry approaching a tipping point with innovative new system architectures, software, and edge devices leading to broad disruption?