Open Source

Industrial enterprises are choosing more and more open-source applications to drive their automation and production projects. Many applications in the machine learning and AI sphere already rely on open source (e.g. Rapidminer or TensorFlow).

This trend requires some rethinking – in development, but also in the application and use of software. Open source is an important prerequisite for the creation of open data markets and client platforms. At the same time, open-source approaches promote new impulses from the IT industry which may encourage the desired convergence of OT and IT.

There’s another reason why open standards and open source are spreading: Businesses don’t want to become dependent on a single provider. And the Covid crisis may even encourage this trend.

A further trend associated with open source is low code. This technology uses visual approaches to develop applications that could previously only be realized via control structures in a high-level programming language. An example would be the visual wiring of functional blocks.

Low code lets engineers who lack deep coding skills develop their own applications and/or software components. For skilled users, this new form of programming enables short-term development of prototypes that can be tested and fine-tuned together with the customer.

The use of low code thus increases flexibility, reduces development times and costs, and accelerates app development for platforms to enable rapid testing and successful further evolution of business models.

The convergence of IT and OT is particularly significant to line control programming. Currently, a large part of the business logic lies deeply hidden in the PLC (programmable logic controller). The logic programs based on the IEC 61131-3 standard are usually hard-coded and offer only a limited degree of flexibility.

Here it would be more efficient to only limit just basic functions with real-time requirements directly in the control, and use an API to connect to the event-driven business logic in superordinate systems. This would permit the development of more flexible adaptations of the business logic using high-level programming language or by using low code.