Imagine your factory’s production line, once the pinnacle of efficiency, now struggling to keep pace with evolving market demands. As technology relentlessly marches forward, many organizations find their existing applications needing help to keep pace.

According to an eye-opening survey by Forrester, a shocking 73% of manufacturers have over half their applications still running on aging on-premise infrastructures and outdated mainframes. Once a source of stability, these legacy systems, with their antiquated technologies, rigid architectures, and cumbersome workflows, have become hazardous technical debts restricting agility, limiting functionality and scalability, and compromising security.

To compete in the era of intelligent manufacturing, data-driven operations, and disruptive innovation, industrial firms need to take a hard look at rationalizing and modernizing their application landscapes.

Application modernization is the process of migrating, optimizing, updating, and transforming applications to align with current technological standards, industry requirements, and evolving user expectations.

The first step in the modernization journey is a comprehensive evaluation of each application considering technical fit, operational costs, utilization, and business value. The analysis identifies which applications should be retired, retained, repurchased, rehosted, replaced, rearchitected, or rewritten.

The ultimate goal of application modernization is to create a streamlined, modern portfolio that aligns with the organization’s digital transformation needs now and in the future.

But how do you know when it’s time to say goodbye to the familiar and embrace the transformative power of modernization? This blog post serves as your guide, exploring the key triggers that signal your manufacturing applications might need a makeover:

Integrating newer technologies like AI, ML, IoT sensors, and advanced analytics with legacy systems has become exceptionally difficult, requiring extensive customized coding and integration costs. On average, your legacy systems take 2-3 times more effort to maintain and cost over five times more per transaction than modern cloud-based applications.

Legacy applications severely constrain business agility and time to market with inefficient release cycles and the inability to scale rapidly. Monolithic applications make even minor tweaks slow and painful, while homegrown tools built for niche use cases create fragmentation. As a result, technical debt accumulates, manual workarounds become commonplace, and siloed systems start to obstruct visibility.

Modern industrial operations require applications that provides real-time insights, processes vast amounts of data, and executes complex tasks efficiently and accurately. Legacy systems simply lack the scalability and elasticity to meet such spikes in demand, eventually forcing you to over-provision infrastructure.

Maintaining multiple legacy applications entails high operational and maintenance costs, redundant functionalities, and inefficient processes and demands for specialized skills and hardware. Consequently, technical debt accumulates, making it increasingly difficult to innovate at the pace required today. Let’s not forget the tremendous number of servers and systems required to support this portfolio.

With cybersecurity threats constantly evolving, legacy platforms pose enormous security risks, as over 70% of breaches are tied to vulnerabilities in outdated systems. Built on antiquated architectures and lacking modern security features, they are particularly susceptible to shadow IT, cyber-attacks, and data breaches.

Evolving regulations often necessitate revamping aging applications that fail compliance requirements. Non-compliance with regulations like GDPR due to legacy apps can lead to heavy penalties for industrial companies. For instance, your legacy ERP systems likely lack the necessary security safeguards for sensitive financial data, like customer payment information, that are now mandated by regulatory standards. These systems simply weren’t designed for today’s security needs.

Unexpected events such as natural disasters, geopolitical tensions, and public health crises underscore the critical importance of business continuity plans. With their monolithic architectures and single points of failure, legacy applications can pose significant risks to continuity and resilience. Additionally, their inflexibility, coupled with poor failure provisions, may further amplify disruptions.

As you expand your industrial operations and enter new markets to serve increasingly diverse customer needs, scalability and flexibility become crucial. Legacy monoliths may limit your ability to scale on demand, adjust to dynamic needs, and enable organizational agility. Moreover, point solutions grown organically over generations could further constrain flexibility.

Industry leaders like Siemens emphasize data-driven manufacturing as the next frontier for exponential value creation. However, decades-old industrial legacy systems frequently lack the capabilities to fully leverage data and analytics, potentially impeding your organization’s capacity to derive actionable insights and make informed decisions.

Today’s consumers expect seamless omnichannel experiences with real-time responsiveness. Yet, legacy applications, burdened by fragmented data and inflexible interfaces, face considerable hurdles in meeting these expectations. The integration of modern customer experience features exacerbates this challenge even more.

Legacy systems and outdated applications can hinder your organization’s agility, affecting innovation, time-to-market, and responsiveness to market trends. As competitors adopt advanced technologies and processes, you may find your existing systems struggling to support new products, meet customer needs, or data-driven insights, potentially leaving you behind in the game.

All the above triggers point towards one vital truth: staying stagnant puts your competitive edge at risk. But fear not! Utthunga’s Application Modernization services help you navigate this complex digital terrain and unlock the true potential of your applications. We go beyond simple updates, offering comprehensive solutions to meet your unique industrial requirements.

We understand that every company’s needs are unique. Whether you’re facing technical obsolescence, demanding performance needs, cost pressures, enhanced security requirements, regulatory compliance, or evolving business goals, our team of experts is equipped to help you navigate the journey toward a truly modern application landscape. And we have more to offer.

We don’t just upgrade; we re-align your application logic with your evolving business needs. Our experts conduct an in-depth analysis of your current workflows, systems, and data architecture. We identify optimization opportunities, redundancies, and gaps. Then, we redesign and integrate your application portfolio to align with strategic business priorities. The result is transformed business logic that improves productivity, decision-making, and competitive positioning.

Ditch the outdated tools and embrace future-proof technologies like cloud, APIs, and microservices. Based on an assessment of your landscape, we architect the optimal technology stack tailored to your specific requirements. We leverage leading platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud to improve scalability, resilience, and efficiency. Our API-driven integration enables legacy systems to share data and functions with modern applications. Transitioning to microservices architecture allows faster iteration and innovation.

Break down silos and bridge the gap between operational technology (OT) and information technology (IT). Our solutions integrate plant floor systems like SCADA, PLCs, sensors, and manufacturing equipment with business applications. This enables a free flow of data to generate actionable intelligence. We implement edge gateways, OT security, and data orchestration platforms to connect operational data with business insights securely.

From strategy to execution, we offer a comprehensive set of tools and services. This includes current-state assessment, future-state architecture, transformation roadmap, pilot implementations, integration testing, data migration, cutover planning, training, and ongoing managed services for the modern environment. We guide you through the entire modernization lifecycle, ensuring a smooth transition and continuous optimization.

Utthunga’s application modernization services cover a wide range of solutions for various applications, including:

ERP: Streamline your core business processes with modernized ERP systems.

CRM: Enhance customer relationships and boost sales with robust, modern CRM solutions.

MES, MOM, MDM, Digital Logbooks, IIoT Platform, CMMS, Traceability Apps: Optimize manufacturing operations and gain valuable insights with cutting-edge technologies.

Decision Support Systems, Supply Chain Apps, Workflow Management, Manufacturing Analytics, Alarms and Event Apps, Historian, KPI Dashboards, PaaS/SaaS Applications, Quality Monitoring Apps: Gain data-driven insights and improve decision-making across your organization.

Our Team of Experts: We don’t just offer services; we provide seasoned professionals who understand your industry and challenges. Our application modernization team comprises:

SME & Architect Pool: System architects, solution architects, cloud architects, IoT platform architects, IT architects, cybersecurity architects, domain/industry experts, business analysts, and program and project managers.

Engineers: Application engineers, cloud engineers, data engineers, QA engineers, DevOps engineers, cybersecurity engineers, UI/UX engineers.

• Tailored Solutions: We don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. We work closely with you to understand your specific needs and goals, developing a customized plan that aligns with your unique IT landscape and industrial objectives.
• Future-Proof Technology: We leverage the latest technologies, including cloud, IoT, and AI, to ensure your applications are not only modern but also scalable and adaptable to future needs.
• Reduced Costs: Modernization can save you money in the long run by reducing technical debt, improving operational efficiency, and minimizing security risks.
• Enhanced Security: We prioritize security at every step of the process, ensuring your applications meet the highest industry standards and regulatory requirements.
• Faster Time to Market: By streamlining your application portfolio, you can accelerate development and innovation, bringing new products and services to market faster.

Modernizing legacy systems and streamlining your application portfolio boosts efficiency today while establishing a foundation for greater agility and faster rollout of future innovations. The results? Improved processes, better user experiences, and a stronger business overall, rebuilt from the ground up.

Our application modernization services go beyond just upgrading systems. We help you prevent future technical debt accumulation while ensuring easy integration of new innovations. At Utthunga, we keep the big picture in mind to future-proof your business and ensure you are always ahead of the curve.

So don’t let outdated applications hold you back. Contact us today and let our team of experts help you unlock the full potential of your industrial application portfolio. We’ll guide you through the process, mitigate risks, and ensure a smooth transition to a modern and future-proof application landscape.

To learn more about our capabilities, click here.

Think about a production plant or a manufacturing unit, it is a visual cacophony of machines, robots, assembly lines, drives and many more parts, and yet completely (almost!) synchronized and working together. Bringing all of them together is the Industrial Internet of Things coupled with the open, Ethernet-based OPC UA communication standard that forms an critical part of the industrial automation landscape.

OPC UA does the job of integrating the IT/OT technologies with the diverse products, solutions and services across the entire OEMs, factory and process systems. Whether it is the security measures, networking, establishing standardized communication or needing a vendor and platform neutrality, OPC UA lays the foundation for a digitized industrial automation .

Source: Opcfoundation.org, OPC UA Interoperability for Industry 4.0 and IoT.

Connecting machine data to the enterprise

It is a fact that automation in the industrial world open doors for new business opportunities, enhanced solutions and services. But, the reality faced is how to effectively transfer the raw data generated from the shop floor equipment to the business applications like ERPs, CRMs; and draw insights to take actionable decisions for a competitive advantage.

Having a fully automated OEM unit or process system means having real-time and accurate information from these systems for analysis, machine alerts, maintenance notifications etc. based on your priorities. OPC UA provides two paths for this integration process:

1. Via customized development solutions and services through OPC UA stack APIs
2. Providing COTS solutions such as connectors, servers, clients etc. that connect your machines, field devices and other equipment etc. to the enterprise

OPC UA is the open source communication standard protocol designed specifically for industrial automation. It acts as a bridge that connects the IT with the OT, for information exchange between machines, devices or within devices. Implementation of this magnitude needs extensive software and hardware support through the OPC SDK that helps the stakeholders to overcome the various development and integration challenges associated with this process.

Consisting of APIs, OPC UA stack, protocols and sample implementations that support different platforms like Windows, Android, iOS, Linux, and programming languages like C, C# and Java; the SDK makes your devices, products and applications to be OPC enabled.

Meeting the Industry 4.0 requirements

Industry 4.0 mandates interoperability and standardized data connectivity for meeting its specific requirements including but not limited to

• Integration across all levels.
• Secure transfer and authentication at user and application levels.
• Conformity to industry standards.
• Scalability.
• Semantic mapping of various information models to represent the actual products and their production steps.
• Ability to plug-and-produce (instant discovery mechanisms that identifies OPC UA enabled devices and their functions when added to a network)

OPC UA serves as the common data connectivity and collaboration standard for local and remote device access in IoT, M2M, and Industry 4.0 settings. It supports OPC UA Server development, OPC UA Client Development and OPC UA Nano Server development for various communication mechanisms:

1. OPC UA client/server Model:

This one-to-one communication mechanism is used extensively in automation. The OPC server transfers the data to the OPC client based upon request in a secure, encrypted and reliable manner using the communication protocols such as EtherNet/IP, Modbus, etc.

2. OPC UA PubSub Model:

In the network, one-to-many or many-to-one communication mechanism is established. The data is available from the publisher, which can be accessed by multiple subscribers. Along with Time-Sensitive Networking (TSN) and cloud environment, OPC UA PubSub enables real-time communication at the control level (sensor, actuator or embedded devices) and meets the demands of time-critical applications.

3. OPC UA over TSN:

While OPC UA provides a standardized mechanism for data communication in a secure way; TSN is the infrastructure of vast array of sensors, actuators and other automation devices that extends the OPC UA information model down to the field level. TSN provides interoperability to the data link (layer 2) of the communication network. Thus, allowing guaranteed, optimized and scalable bandwidths for real-time capability and low latency in the network.

Utthunga’s OPC Spectrum

Utthunga’s comprehensive integrated automation service portfolio extends from the field-level devices to the enterprise-level systems. Enabling in this endeavour is Utthunga’s uOPC Suite, OPC product portfolio; and consultation and development services that help manufacturers to take advantage of all the modern technologies like AI, mobile devices, big data, machine learning, predictive maintenance, machine vision and more to create a smart industry automation environment.

As a flexible partner for OPC UA, our OPC offerings designed by experienced and certified professionals provide both horizontal (between devices from different vendors on different networks) and vertical support (from the factory floor to the enterprise level) thus enabling the industry 4.0 ecosystem.

Our technical and domain expertise in embedded, mobile, multi-platform and cloud connectivity for OPC UA Server development, OPC UA Client Development and OPC UA Nano Server development using the uOPC Suite helps in planning, executing, and delivering high-grade services and turnkey projects. It is designed to drastically reduce time and efforts to build custom solutions with easy integration and configuration.

Partners, end users, and customers can leverage our IP to deliver mix of solutions and services for:

• Building products using out accelerators (protocol stacks, edge connectivity stack – uCOnnect, cloud application framework- Javelin)
• Connecting heterogeneous system using our industry protocols stacks (HART, FF, PROFIBUS, PROFINET, EtherNet/IP etc.)
• Creating field device integration and connectivity (FDT/DTM, FDI, OPC) solutions

Please visit our website or contact us directly to learn more about our OPC UA capabilities.

Industrial Internet of Things or IIoT refers to interconnected instruments, sensors and other devices which can be networked together in an industrial setting. This connectivity enables remote access, efficient monitoring, data acquisition and collection, analysis and exchange of different data sources and a lot more. IIoT solutions have enormous potential for increasing productivity, and are also known for their low cost and quick implementation.

IIoT solutions require various factors working together including:

• Industrial ‘things’ – The devices that are directly or indirectly internet-enabled like human machine Interfaces (HMI), PLCs, IP cameras and sensors.
• Connectivity – Connecting the internet with ‘things’ via industry protocols, Wi-Fi, 4G/cellular, Ethernet connections.
• Data – Collection, storage and processing of data with the help of devices is central to the value of IIoT.
• Cloud platform – A significant key to IIoT is the secure and centralised cloud platform to host the data and enable remote services.
• Analytics dashboard – For analysis of data and monitoring machines.
• Intelligence and action – Data is analysed by both smart device functions as well as humans to send alarms/notifications to any other system.

IIoT in industrial automation

On the threshold of fourth industrial revolution, industrial organizations are investing more in IIoT to improve the operational performance, visibility and insights, which can help in streamlining the processes. Eliminating the complexity out of deploying, connecting and managing devices in industries is key to IIoT success.

Here are some of the key benefits that you can expect from industrial IIoT solutions:

Increase Efficiency

The top benefit of IIoT is that it provides the ability to automate, remotely monitor operations and make data-driven decisions, thus enhancing the operational efficiency.

Reduce Errors

Industrial IoT digitizes nearly all processes. By reducing manual procedures and entries, the risk associated with human errors is largely reduced.

Provide Predictive Maintenance

Machine and asset downtime can adversely impact industrial operations. Industrial IoT solutions can consistently monitor the performance and functions of various industrial assets and help in creating a baseline. This baseline along with corresponding data can empower the industries with the information that will enable them resolve pre-emptively any issues.

Improve Safety

Fully functioning IIoT solutions have integrated safety systems that uses data from monitoring and control devices to help in improving workplace safety. In case, any incident occurs, valuable data is obtained from these systems, which can help in preventing their repeated occurrence in the future. Wearables are also used in industrial IoT operations that keep tab on things such as the surrounding noise levels and employee posture, etc. and can instantly alert the employees when they do not follow proper safety procedures.

Reduce Cost

The knowledge gained through the IIoT solutions provide important data-driven insights which help in improving the processes, including designing, operation, manufacturing, marketing, sales and a lot more, thus, steering the business in profitable direction.

Top 5 practical applications of IIoT in industrial automation

1. Remote access of machines

With remote access to industrial machines, the service engineers and other stakeholders can conveniently access the machine from their current locations, check their log files on the PLCs and change settings if required. It will take only a few minutes to access the machine and find problem, which will save a time-consuming trip to the manufacturer’s site.

2. Update new functionalities on HMIs

New functionalities are added to the machines to make the job more efficient and fast. While the programmer implements this functionality in the control panel of the machine, the HMI software needs to be updated, and tested in order to launch the new functionality. In that case, HMI software updates can be applied remotely through secure network access over the internet. With the web-based virtual network connection, you are able to view and check the HMI functionality anytime on that IIoT platform.

3. Predictive analysis for machine maintenance

As with all hardware, even the IIoT enabled machines undergo wear and tear before finally replaced with new equipments. In such scenarios, active and regular maintenance is crucial to prevent downtime and decreased production output. Using cloud to collect, store and access information on the machine parts, maintenance engineers can keep track of the remaining useful life (RUL) for every asset. Automatic notifications can be sent to the right person if an asset reaches its maintenance limit. By analysing the potential problems via remote access and online diagnostics tools, you are likely to get the right spare parts.

4. Analyse and optimize industrial robot actions

Industrial robots can make repetitive work easy. IIoT features with remote access can change the robot program actions and get better insights of the log files. Video analysis can also help in improving the actions of certain robots. Access to live stream and IP camera recordings can make improvements far more easy and fast. A VPN connection can be set up easily for full network access to any device that is connected to the robot.

5. Manage building automation data from multiple locations

IIoT can be used to monitor and control the heating, lighting, energy consumption, fire protection, employee safety and many other systems for multiple buildings from a central location. The real-time machine data can be transferred to a central cloud application, using industrial communication networks.

If you are planning to automate your processes in a smart way, then IIoT is the way to go. IIoT is bringing forth new business models to increase revenue, while at the same time acting as a force multiplier for improved productivity and efficiency.To know more about how Utthunga can help you create a smart building or factory and improve your business productivity, efficiency, reliability and ROI, visit https://utthunga.com/.