Rockwell Automation and Microsoft have announced a five-year partnership expansion to develop integrated, market-ready solutions that help industrial customers improve digital agility through cloud technology.
By combining each company’s expertise in the industrial and IT markets respectively, teams can work together more seamlessly, enabling industrial organizations to save on infrastructure costs, speed time-to-value, and increase productivity.
Microsoft and Rockwell are working to deliver innovative edge-to-cloud-based solutions that connect information between development, operations and maintenance teams through a singular, trusted data environment. This will allow development teams to digitally prototype, configure and collaborate without investing in costly physical equipment.
The unified information environment also enables IT and OT teams to not only securely access and share data models across the organisation, but with their ecosystem of partners as well.
“Today, one thing we know for sure is that no business is 100% resilient. Those fortified with digital capabilities and assets are more resilient than others, and the cloud is how they will thrive,” says Judson Althoff, executive vice-president of worldwide commercial business, Microsoft. “We are pleased to deepen our already strong, decade-long relationship with Rockwell Automation to help businesses simplify industrial transformation, accelerate business outcomes and innovate with agility.”
To date, the companies have co-developed over 20 use cases across Food & Beverage, Household and Personal Care and Life Sciences industries. The solutions developed from this partnership will augment and enhance our current offerings.
“This partnership provides Rockwell Automation and Microsoft customers with a holistic, simple solution for IIoT development and operations and removes data silos that hinder industrial digital transformation initiatives,” says Blake Moret, chairman and CEO of Rockwell Automation. “By eliminating a core barrier to automation initiatives, industrial organisations establish a digital thread connecting the entire enterprise, which in turn accelerates innovation, maximises productivity and optimises operations.”