Making Legacy Equipment Connections Work

If you’re involved in any kind of Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, or advanced manufacturing initiative in general, a key task will involve extracting data from older equipment. Given that large numbers of automated equipment and devices across industry pre-date any sort of broad, network-centered data aggregation or standardization efforts, this task is not as straightforward as it might seem. To better understand how manufacturers can more effectively go about extracting data from older equipment in a meaningful way, we connected with Luke Stephenson, business manager at Enterprise Automation, a control systems integrator, for a recent episode of the “Automation World Gets Your Questions Answered” podcast series.