Turning the vision of a connected enterprise into a reality

As technology continues to advance at a rapid rate, the line between information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) is becoming less defined. Establishing an information-enabled connected enterprise can help manufacturers become more competitive, flexible and sustainable, which is of paramount importance in the current global market.

To help customers address their business and technology challenges and reap the rewards the industrial connected enterprise delivers, Rockwell Automation is bringing ConnectED 2015 to Melbourne on 16-19 March at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. This new event will be held in association with Cisco Live, Cisco’s premier education and technical updating destination for IT professionals.

According to Matthew Treeby, commercial marketing manager at Rockwell Automation, “In order to remain competitive, there is a growing need for our customers to merge their information technology and operational technology. This convergence improves connectivity across enterprise operations and provides the platform to integrate information across business systems and the plant floor.

“By hosting ConnectED 2015 in association with Cisco Live, attendees can see first-hand how these two worlds are coming together to offer manufacturers agility, lower cost of ownership and improved operations. An added advantage of having both these events under the one roof is that registration for either one includes free admission to the other,” he said.

ConnectED 2015 will help improve collaboration between the OT and IT in business and provide the opportunity to learn about how other customers are managing convergence to gain productivity and reduce overlap. Attendees from the OT space will gain a better understanding of the tools, technologies and expertise available to assist with bridging the gap, while those from the IT world will learn more about the specific network and technology requirements for operations.

Rockwell Automation, together with its distributors and PartnerNetwork, will demonstrate how the recent acceleration of the Internet of Things enables new levels of connectivity for people, processes, data and things - ultimately providing greater productivity, better utilisation of assets and improved decision-making to industrial companies.