Industrial projects have always been challenging. But today, engineering, procurement, and construction contractors (EPCs) need to deliver faster, safer, and cheaper, on a playing field that is always moving.
This pressure is visible on the plant floor, where a slowdown at one station can silently starve the next; operators make phone calls, manually check screens, and material piles up. Each control system, although working correctly, they don’t all communicate with each other. In an interconnected operation, the challenge is ensuring people and systems have the visibility to coordinate the right response.
Open, software-defined automation can help address this challenge. By decoupling control software from specific hardware and using standard protocols and validated runtime environments, it supports greater interoperability and agility. For EPCs, this flexibility can help:
- Improve predictability
- Reduce integration risk
- Enable deeper collaboration across the industrial ecosystem
Why traditional delivery models are under pressure
The industrial workforce is changing, with experienced automation professionals retiring at a high rate. In fact, the manufacturing industry may see 1.9 million jobs go unfilled by 2033. For industrial automation projects that rely on deep pools of seasoned engineers who understand the proprietary systems, programming environments, and hardware dependencies, challenges are increasing as new project teams bring more software-, data-, and IT-oriented skill sets to the table.
At the same time, owners expect faster delivery, lower risk, and fewer surprises. Cybersecurity must be built into projects from the outset—yet 60% of organizations say their teams lack the necessary skills. Supply-chain constraints require more flexibility in how systems are specified and sourced. In this environment, tightly coupled hardware-software architectures can create friction precisely when project teams need adaptability.
Reducing uncertainty across the project lifecycle
For EPCs, risk management is central to the value they deliver. Every schedule delay, procurement challenge, integration issue, or late-stage design change can affect project economics. This is especially important for lump-sum projects, where EPCs must balance cost competitiveness with dependable execution.
A project team may meet the technical specification and still face risk if the architecture is difficult to source, hard to validate, or dependent on specialized knowledge that is becoming harder to find. Open, software-defined automation can help reduce that uncertainty by giving project teams more flexibility in how systems are engineered and deployed.
Instead of tying control applications to a single hardware platform, software-defined approaches support greater portability across validated hardware environments, which can:
- Reduce procurement constraints
- Simplify expansion
- Give EPCs more options as project conditions change.
Industrial projects will always involve risk. We reduce unknowns by working from architectures, tools, and partnerships that we have already tested, validated, and designed to work together.
The challenge is coordination
Many industrial operations already have significant automation in place; the problem is that those systems often operate as islands. One line may include multiple PLCs, control devices, workstations, and software environments, each performing its assigned function. Yet if those systems cannot communicate effectively, the operation still depends on human expertise to interpret what is happening and coordinate the response.
Open, software-defined approaches can create a common layer for data aggregation, system communication, and operational visibility. The value comes from better coordination: knowing when to pause upstream activity, adjust downstream operations, perform maintenance, and where productivity is being constrained.
What openness enables
This is where collaboration becomes part of the architecture. In traditional automation architectures, teams often tightly connect software and hardware. Vendors may tie the engineering environment, controller, HMI, I/O, and lifecycle support model to a specific ecosystem. That can provide consistency, but it can also limit flexibility when requirements change, components become unavailable, or older systems reach the end of support.
Open, software-defined automation changes that relationship. By making control applications more portable across validated runtime environments and compatible hardware platforms, it can help EPCs gain:
- More sourcing flexibility when components are delayed, unavailable, or obsolete
- Greater interoperability across systems, vendors, and technology partners
- More reusable engineering through common runtime environments and standards-based communication
The value is choice with discipline: more flexibility without losing confidence that specified systems will perform reliably, securely, and predictably.
Open, validated, and built for collaboration
Foxboro Software-Defined Automation (SDA) is one example of this evolution. It combines the reliability expectations of a distributed control system with the flexibility of open, software-defined automation. By decoupling software from hardware and supporting deployment across validated runtime environments, it gives project teams greater flexibility in specifying, engineering, expanding, and maintaining systems.
That distinction matters for EPCs:
- Proprietary architectures limit hardware choice, sourcing options, and long-term flexibility
- Unstructured open approaches can introduce new integration and validation risks
- Validated, software-defined architectures can provide a tested foundation while still enabling greater interoperability and collaboration
Industrial project delivery is becoming more connected, more software-driven, and more dependent on collaboration across the ecosystem. As uncertainty grows, the ability to work from open, validated, and interoperable foundations will become increasingly important to delivering projects with confidence.
Join the conversation
Join us to shape the future of open automation for project delivery. Become part of the Foxboro SDA Advisory Council to access validated architectures, influence requirements, and connect with industry peers. Fill out the form to get started.
Add a comment