Like most other sectors, global macroeconomic conditions have left their mark on industrial automation. Not a single OEM today is unaffected.
In our recent study, manufacturers cited raised product and production prices, lower profit margins, and increased time-to-market as the most significant impacts on product development strategy resulting from the economic downturn.
OEMs are trying to adapt, investing in a wide range of technologies. However, manufacturers are still looking for that silver-bullet innovation that will give them competitive advantages to weather the economic storm. In fact, OEMs can’t seem to agree on one definitive technology that is most important to their product development strategy.
While 19% of those surveyed cited virtual assistants as most important, 17% said digital twins, 16% said companion devices, 16% said voice controls, 15% said over-the-air, 15% said AI/ML and only 6% said AR/VR (which aligns with market news of a significant slowdown in global 2023 shipments of AR/VR headsets compared to pandemic-driven highs).
So, why do manufacturers have such disparate priorities instead of rallying one technology?
Factories have long been slow to adopt technology
The scattered focus of technology investment isn’t entirely surprising given the history of factories and processing plants. They’ve come a long way in adopting automation technologies that have greatly improved production efficiencies and quality, but these have been around for many years.
“Game changer” technologies generally seen in the IoT space have had a more challenging time penetrating industrial automation. It’s markedly different from the significant effects of tech trends on other industries, like automotive.
So, why is technological growth so slow in industrial automation? A recent McKinsey report stated that industrial OEMs have long added technology piecemeal, reluctant to disrupt the foundational processes factories have been built around. The context here is that many factories are decades old. Machines they produce or procure need to run equally long, and they’re usually significant upfront investments. Even the manufacturing or factory environments themselves vary greatly: some don’t allow any type of outside connectivity (e.g. WiFi/Bluetooth) on the plant floor or machines. This makes technologies like over-the-air updates and connectivity highly divisive because in some cases they’re extremely difficult or time-consuming to implement.
Investment is being made. Things like visualizing data from headless devices and remote sites and the increasing interaction between factory machines and devices – and their digital twin counterparts – have significantly heightened the demand for connectivity.
Whatever the technology, UI and UX are a key sector priority
For all the pain macroeconomic conditions have caused industrial automation, they have also opened up new opportunities for UI/UX innovations to thrive. OEMs might not be rallying around any single technology, but they consider UI/UX a key priority, partly spurred by the demand for connectivity.
There are good reasons for OEMs wanting to move in this direction, from financial gains to advancement in technological capabilities, increasing market share, and generating competitive differentiators. OEMs are coming around to the notion that device usability will be king if they wish to stand out. And that’s likely why 35% of OEMs plan to spend at least half their budget on improving UI/UX in embedded devices in the next year.
The challenge, however, of implementing good UI and UX is that the cost often proves prohibitive to manufacturers. It’s not uncommon for these companies to have a single UI developer – and possibly no designers – who are asked to build extremely sleek interfaces with scarcely the time to do it justice. OEMs are trying to do something about this: over 40% of the OEM respondents claim to be investing in adopting cross-platform development tools and acquiring new talent. The McKinsey report this year corroborates the necessity for the latter by similarly noting pressing skills shortages.
In the face of limited human labour to deliver on UI/UX needs, investment in the proper software development framework and cross-platform development tools will be essential to alleviating the burden on designers saving time and resources. An excellent cross-platform framework allows designers to communicate more effectively and rapidly with developers through a single digital user interface shared between developers and designers. It enables both camps to collaborate on improving design, functionality, and intuitiveness, sharing steady real-time feedback on how devices function in the real world.
The goal of any smooth user experience should be for the device to be easy to use, understand, operate, and even personalize and customize. More than any hyped-up technology like AI and ML, this will be the defining differentiator for industrial automation as they increasingly adopt a ‘digital-first’ mindset.
By Patrick Dalez, director at Qt Group
