Process solutions shine with more than a little help from partners

Big challenges typically need big fixes. The trouble is that such solutions can be hard to find and even harder to apply effectively.

The good news is that after decades of practice, Rockwell Automation’s Process Solutions User Group (PSUG) and its participants have become adept at evaluating process industry issues, devising effective remedies, and optimizing their applications—often by applying the company’s PlantPAx distributed control system (DCS). The even better news is their expert assistance is especially welcome at a time when the process industries among others are being buffeted by enormous and accelerating changes.  

Sebastien Grau (pictured), global industrial vice president for the process industries at Rockwell, reported that end users face four primary challenges:

• Workforce shortages and skills gaps. Research indicates 25% of today’s active workers are more than 55 years old and many are expected to retire within five years. This translates to a huge skills gap of 2.1 million additional unfilled jobs by 2030.
• Asset reliability and downtime. About 70% of plants worldwide expect at least one unplanned shutdown per year, which can typically cost about $260,000 per hour or more.
• Safety and risk management. Worldwide, between 2-3 million workers per year die due to work-related diseases and accidents. Of these, approximately 330,000 deaths are due to accidents. The annual cost in the U.S. is about $170 billion.
• Fragmented assets and data. About 53% of production data faces barriers that prevent it from being used to form better decisions, while 65% of data from other sources must be manually cleaned and prepared for further analysis.

“These problems can be largely solved by implementing more autonomous functions, advanced analytics and remote operations, integrated safety and risk management, and open standards and design flexibility for data handling,” said Grau. “There continues to be a lot of demand for model-predictive control (MPC) and predictive maintenance in the process industries. Users in their applications can also connect via computerized maintenance management systems (CMMS), which can help predict shutdowns and enable autonomous operations. Users can also bring in control center functions via remote hubs, which allow applications to regulate themselves without generating as many alarms.”

Grau reported these capabilities allow one operator to visualize and monitor multiple processes and sites, centralize operational control, and maximize optimization. They can also improve safety by reducing the need for people to go into hazardous areas, so all they need to do to maintain safety and cybersecurity is evaluate and manage risks.

“Users are mad about the costs of being interrupted or having to shut down every time there’s a Microsoft upgrade,” explained Grau. “The four-part, customer-based philosophy that can address these concerns includes empowering staff to perform better, be more resilient, practice protective safety, and employ a unified data platform. For example, we developed PlantPAx to make sure users have the flexibility needed to work with processes, systems, integrators and partners.”

Grau and several colleagues and partners presented during the PSUG Summit during Automation Fair 2025 from Rockwell Automation this week in Chicago. The event was sponsored by Endress+Hauser.

Endress+Hauser bridges barriers

Celebrating its own 20-year partnership with Rockwell Automation, Endress+Hauser’s instruments have gained intelligence by adding microprocessors and data processing capabilities over the years, according to Kevin DeWitt, Endress+Hauser business development manager. However, the challenge for users is still how to better reflect and make use of the information those instruments provide.

“Users need data to stay in business and avoid downtime,” said DeWitt. “But, there are still many challenges to obtaining and using information to manage plants effectively—including data sources and users that are at a distance from each other, costly unplanned downtime that can also hinder information access, and lots of data that never gets used.”

To overcome these difficulties, Endress+Hauser and Rockwell Automation have partnered since 2005 on a variety of process automation solutions, including developing and running close to a dozen, room-sized, real-life Process Training Units (PTU) across the U.S. and internationally. The PTUs hosted about 8,000 visits this year.

Kris Dornan, commercial, marketing manager at Rockwell, added they’re also looking at building explicit connections between Rockwell Automation and Endress+Hauser devices and systems leveraging freely available software libraries. In fact, Jason Pennington, digital solutions director at Endress+Hauser, reported that it’s releasing standardized connectors for its Netlion Connect ecosystem. For example, Netilion can serve as a bridge in secure, wireless industrial ecosystems, and link devices using WirelessHART protocol with Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk platform as well as Fiix and ThinManager software packages.

“Using these standardized connectors in a secure, wireless ecosystem allows devices to report what’s wrong, whether they’re working or not, and show how long this situation has been happening,: explained Pennington. “This puts answers and remedies into users’ hands in minutes. These standardized connectors increase confidence and cybersecurity for middleware, reduce required engineering, and can save 70-90% on time and resources.”

PlantPAx gains new powers

To enhance its partnerships with system integrators, Jason Nolden, global director for Rockwell Automation’s projects business, reported that it’s developing a consistent baseline for PlantPAx, including a process library, programming guide and reference architectures, which are actively managed with version controls, verified compatibility and migration tools. Despite focusing on these consistent tools, Nolden added that users will still have room to differentiate themselves with customizable building blocks, configurable functions and playbooks.

“These playbooks include lessons learned from groups of users, such as best maintenance practices,“ explained Nolden. “This will allow them to establish communities of practice that ensure system compliance and deliver higher-value solutions and continuous improvement with confidence.”

Scotty Bromfield, process business manager at Rockwell Automation, added that PlantPAx 5.30 was released in 2024, and features remote operations center support, secure connectivity and cybersecurity in compliance with IEC/ISA 62443. More recently, this year‘s release of PlantPAx 5.4 features more efficient and effective operations, latest hardware and software support, Nutanix’s extended hypervisor and InfluxDB architecture support, and field panel use, including a process library with FactoryTalk Optix content.

Several other new releases at the PSUG Summit and Automation Fair 2025 included:

• ControlLogix 5590 PLC with improved cross-loading and expanded memory, unified safety and process control with SIL2 safety performance out of the box, IEC/ISA 62443-4-2 compliance to enable zero-trust architectures, and 1 GB Ethernet ports.
• 5034 PointMax IO portfolio with a 30% smaller footprint compared to 1734 POINT IO, and 1 Gbps performance that’s 1,000 times faster than 1734’s 1 Mbps. It also has 80% safety coverage compared to the 1734 offering, and complies with the European Union’s (EU) eco-design requirements.
• EtherNet/IP protocol in-cabinet wiring enabled by single-pair Ethernet is reported to reduce capital costs by 14%, wiring time by 80%, testing time by 50%, project engineering time by 30% and panel size by 10%.

“Plant PAx 5.50 will be released in mid-2026, and will also include the latest hardware and software, more visible code for better troubleshooting, and smarter estimates for better performance and results,” said Bromfield. “In addition, our Logix portfolio is becoming more software-defined, so it can run on industrial PCs (IPC), which will make it even more usable in more applications.”