In the world of industrial machinery, increasing software complexity and connectivity are profoundly changing the way OEMs work.
For many machine builders, the challenge today is not simply to add new functionalities, but to do so while maintaining architectures that are sustainable over time: easier to develop, standardize, and maintain.
This challenge is particularly evident in sectors such as industrial textiles, where machines often operate continuously, are customized according to production requirements, and must ensure high reliability even across installations distributed worldwide.
Over time, many companies have built their automation platforms by integrating PLCs, HMIs, industrial PCs, and supervisory systems from different ecosystems.
An approach that may initially appear flexible, but that tends to create a number of challenges:
In textile finishing and processing machinery, where production lines often operate across multiple shifts and involve energy-intensive processes, these limitations become even more apparent. And this is what our estimated customer Ferraro experimented.
More and more machine builders are moving toward approaches based on:
The objective is not to introduce design rigidity, but to build a technological foundation that can scale more easily.
Across various recent industrial projects, centralizing PLC, HMI, and connectivity has helped reduce overall complexity, improve software reusability, and simplify development, commissioning, and maintenance.
One of the most common misconceptions among OEMs is that standardization means limiting customization.
In reality, a consistent platform makes it possible to:
The objective is not to make every machine identical, but to create a stable and repeatable foundation on which increasingly flexible and scalable applications can be built.
For machine builders operating primarily in international markets, standardization is also a key factor in ensuring technological consistency and uniform support across installations distributed in different geographical areas.
Standardizing the architecture is often the first step toward more advanced digital services.
A more connected and centralized machine makes it easier to implement:
Ferraro, an Italian textile machinery manufacturer, has followed this path by developing a centralized platform to standardize automation and simplify the management of its installations worldwide.
The centralization of PLC, HMI, and connectivity provided the technological foundation for the project. Building on this infrastructure, advanced capabilities for data collection, energy monitoring, and digital services for end customers could then be introduced.
Learn more about how machine data, energy management, and servitization complete this evolution in the dedicated article.
For many industrial OEMs, the challenge will no longer be simply to “add technology,” but to understand how to integrate it sustainably.
In the coming years, the most effective architectures will likely be those capable of combining:
The competitiveness of industrial machinery will increasingly depend on its ability to evolve over time without increasing complexity and management costs.