Lighthouse team, integrators show how to get the jump on projects

Extraordinary times and unexpected situations demand extraordinary capabilities—as well as finding and practicing new and unusual skills. For instance, COVID-19 and its supply chain snarls triggered calls to reshore production of microprocessors, electronics and other products experiencing sometimes multi-year delays. Subsequent wars in Ukraine and Gaza, plus more recent U.S. government economic policy arguments redoubled those initial efforts to localize production and shorten supply chains, according to Brian Holte, global industry growth vice president at Rockwell Automation.

So, three years ago, Rockwell Automation established a dedicated team called Lighthouse that combines staff members, partners, system integrators and other suppliers to investigate opportunities for reshoring and associated issues. It tracks about 16,000 related projects worldwide worth approximately $8 trillion, including more than 4,000 in the U.S. worth about $3.4 trillion. The team also seeks solutions to the universal “Iron Law of Project Management,” which is they invariably finish late, over budget and with fewer benefits than planned.

“We’re trying to handle this momentary window, to find ways to overcome challenges like workforce, tariffs, artificial intelligence (AI) and other volatile forces shaping our industries,” said Holte, who kicked off the New Capacity Excellence Summit this week at Automation Fair 2025 in Chicago.

“These issues can be addressed when we’re just ready to manufacture,” he said. “They’re resolved over longer periods of time. For example, we may want to hire a humanoid or autonomous mobile robot (AMR), but we can’t just think about how they’ll be used for a production run. We have to consider how they’ll fit into long-term operations.”

The summit event was sponsored by Cisco as part of its efforts to work closely with Rockwell and its other partners on factories of the future, and transform data into contextualized information.

Get involved earlier

Based on what Lighthouse learned from 300 projects worth $500 billion, Holte reported this holistic thinking must also occur earlier in planning, design and specification cycles. “There’s more value to be gained by pivoting to get involved sooner,” he explained. “That’s what’s needed to light up the scoreboard and succeed.”

Even as many industries face skilled workforce shortages, employers are seeking to reduce personnel in other processes with fully autonomous, lights-out operations. However, Holte added Lighthouse learned this vision also requires thinking beyond traditional, short-term goals like hitting target dates and getting products out the door, as well as scaling back to what’s practical. “Initial visions for autonomy may have to return to reality, refocus on agility and efficiency that’s pragmatic, and start with what can actually be accomplished,” added Holte. “We usually work in this middle zone of operations that are connected and protected, even though the original vision was full autonomy.”

To help users integrate their own visions earlier in their planning and design cycles, when they’ll have the most impact for the least cost, Lighthouse works in conjunction with Rockwell Automation’s PartnerNetwork to join original equipment manufacturers (OEM), engineering procurement contractors (EPC) and other customers with its distributors, system integrators and other partners. This program provides:

• Local access to Rockwell’s software, hardware and services,
• Expert personnel to co-innovate and implement them,
• Industrial automation and networking for these technologies and systems, and
• Efficiency and optimization expertise and services. 

“Since Lighthouse started, it’s assisted with hundreds of projects, and learned about four primary challenges, namely speed to market, operational productivity, workforce enablement and sustainable operations,” said Brenden Lowe, global director for new capacity at Rockwell Automation. “We have the solutions to help customers simulate, emulate and complete their projects on time, on budget and on value from design to commissioning.”

For instance, Lowe reported that:

• Speed to market is often hampered by unforeseen events that compress schedules and stress participants, but virtualized design tools can often save enough time to decompress these situations.
• Operational productivity is hindered when users are caught between being unable to implement all the capabilities they want, but not wanting to implement equipment they could have to rip out in a couple of years. This dilemma can also be resolved by considering control and automation solutions earlier in design processes, rather than bolting them on as an afterthought.
• Workforce enablement should also be included earlier in design processes, where options like AMRs might be able to give workers some much-needed assistance.
• Sustainable operations can be aided by increasingly electrified actuators, drives and other components that are often more precisely controlled, and better able to reduce material scrap and waste.

“Many of these issues can be addressed successfully if design teams connect earlier with their general contractors, stakeholder communities and other partners,” added Lowe. “This is another process where the Rockwell Automation PartnerNetwork can help simplify solutions, reduce risks and accelerate operations.”

Similarly, the Lighthouse team employs a three-day procedure for helping participants progress toward digital and operational maturity:

• Day 1 consists of gaining an understanding of a client’s solution and its risks, schedule and costs; 
• Day 2 focuses on reliability, maintenance and support, and integrates available data to develop a unified ecosystem of suppliers and partners; and 
• Day 3 progresses towards predictive/adaptive plants and future autonomous operations by recommending standardized solutions, such as simulation and emulation, unifying process and power controls, streamlining production logistics, making data more accessible and implementing cybersecurity. 

The team organizes and modularizes many of its proposed solutions into Lighthouse Building Blocks that can be standardized for simpler implementation and configuration on OEMs’ skids and/or more easily scaled across related systems and equipment.

Integrators and contractors weigh in

The New Capacity Excellence Summit also included presentations by several system integrators and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firms, who showed how they’ve partnered with Rockwell Automation to enable their designs and projects.

Brice Leffel, cybersecurity subject matter expert (SME) at Wood plc reported that it uses Rockwell Automation’s ControlLogix PLCs and Cisco’s networking solutions, and overcomes the deficiencies of third-party, packaged cybersecurity systems by getting clients to consider using:

• Cybersecurity earlier in their front-end engineering design (FEED) process, 
• Standardized managed switches that can serve as firewalls, so they’ll be simpler to deploy and maintain, and
• Cybersecurity hazardous operations (CHazOp) surveys to determine appropriate monitoring and protection solutions that clients can understand and manage, so cyber-probes can’t get in and won’t disrupt operations later. 

Rao Kolla, director of process and electrical controls and engineering at Stellar, reported that it collaborates with Rockwell Automation on many of its design, engineering, electrical, construction and mechanical services projects, and employs the company’s Batch Performance Analytics software, so clients can obtain crucial results and make adjustments before batches are finished. It also uses Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk Guardian AI software to help monitor and analyze motor performances, and use data projections to indicate needed maintenance before they’re likely to fail.

“Previously, simulations might show how equipment was likely to run, but now we have digital twins that run on screen, show operators how well they’re responding to faults, and what they should do to troubleshoot,” said Kolla. “We also collected baseline data, so we can simulate opening and closing all the valves in a facility which is usually done 12 times a year and takes an hour. Now, we can see how the system is running sooner, ask more and better questions, and improve training, too. It let us service switches ahead of time, and eliminated two weeks of downtime.”

Dam Malyszko, vice president at Malisko Engineering, now part of BW Design Group, reported that it recently worked on an alternative-protein application that included an almost pharmaceutical-level fermentation process. It implemented Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx DCS and FactoryTalk software on a pilot that the client wanted to scale up, developed blocks that would allow rapid documentation and commissioning, and performed its factory acceptance test and startup on time. Malisko also employed Cisco and Rockwell Automation’s Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) network architecture to design this solution.

“CPwE means we don’t have to reinvent the wheel to implement PlantPAX and FactoryTalk,” explained Malyszko. “We also conducted an Industrial DataOps workshop to bring together data in a unified namespace, and added Cisco’s Unified Edge product to allow AI functions and readiness.”