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Industrial Automation and Control
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Digital Transformation
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Bill Lydon
Bill Lydon, an experienced industrial automation technical and business professional, is currently a consultant providing insights, facilitating thinking and coaching for digital manufacturing transformation. Lydon has 35 years of experience, including industrial, Programmable Logic Controller (PLC), process control/DCS, electrical power/utility and building automation with technology and business experience ranging from design, application engineering, corporate experience, co-founder & president of a start-up company. He started his career as a designer of computer-based machine tool controls; in other positions, he applied programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and process control technology. He's trained and experienced as a group Creative Problem Solving & Value Engineering facilitator.
Working at a large company, Lydon served a two-year stint as part of a five-person task group, that designed a new generation automation system including controllers, networking and supervisory and control software. He also designed software for chiller and boiler plant optimization. Bill was the product manager for a multimillion-dollar controls and automation product line and later cofounder and president of an industrial control software company with solutions for factory and process control and automation.
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Opinion
Manufacturing Competitiveness Necessitates Understanding Automation Possibilities, and Industry Events Offer Learning Opportunities
Successful manufacturing companies understand the importance of their people attending industry trade events and symposiums to facilitate learning about the latest manufacturing and industrial automation concepts, techniques and products available.By: Bill Lydon27 May, 2026 | 2 minutes -
Feature
Open, Proprietary or Managed Ecosystems Require Critical Business Management Decisions
Industrial control and automation systems investments require critical business management decisions for long term competitiveness, growth and profits over time.By: Bill Lydon26 May, 2026 | 5 minutes -
Feature
Process Industry Working Group Accelerates Process Control and Automation Convergence
The PLCopen Process Industry Working Group will explore the incorporation of the function blocks PLCopen has developed for the O-PAS standard into a new PLCopen standard.By: Bill Lydon17 December, 2025 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Open Systems Initiatives Require Critical Business Management Decisions
Understand the trade-offs and investments needed to create an integrated, real-time, industrial manufacturing business.By: Bill Lydon07 March, 2025 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Process Users Shift from DCS to PLC: PLC vs. DSC Experience Survey
The PLC vs. DSC Experience Survey interim report is an ongoing, crowdsourced, open survey for users to share experience and know-how with the automation community.By: Bill Lydon30 October, 2024 | 4 minutes -
Feature
AWS (Amazon Web Services) Digital Manufacturing Architecture: IMTS 2024
The AWS IMTS 2024 booth featured embedded hardware providers to integrate the manufacturing edge, sensors, actuators and other devices into the architecture.By: Bill Lydon29 October, 2024 | 3 minutes -
Feature
An Open-Source Control Programming Platform for Universalautomation.org Runtime Engine
The Eclipse Foundation 4diac project has spearheaded the open-source industrial software movement.By: Bill Lydon28 October, 2024 | 3 minutes -
Feature
AI Accelerating Industrial Transformation: Microsoft at IMTS 2024
Microsoft's theme at IMTS 2024 was: "Accelerate Industrial Transformation with AI."By: Bill Lydon03 October, 2024 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Siemens Digitalization of Art to Part: IMTS 2024
The Siemens software portfolio was demonstrated at IMTS 2024 illustrating the digitalization of “art to part” at its booth at IMTS 2024.By: Bill Lydon02 October, 2024 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Technology Trends That Empower Innovation
Advances in 18 technology areas are empowering and inspiring manufacturers.By: Bill Lydon25 September, 2024 | 35 minutes -
Feature
Real-time Digital Manufacturing: Realized
Applying digital transformation techniques and new system design approaches make integrated, sensor-to-enterprise systems possible.By: Bill Lydon23 September, 2024 | 5 minutes -
Feature
Automation Is Essential for Manufacturing Growth
Why consider macroeconomic or wide-ranging technological trends? Because industrial growth and resilience depend on it.By: Bill Lydon17 September, 2024 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Industrial Controller Software Standards Discussions at ARC Forum 2024
At the 28th annual ARC Industry Leadership Forum in Orlando, Control Software Standards proved to be an important piece of the discussion, particularly IEC 61131 and IEC 61499.By: Bill Lydon11 March, 2024 | 9 minutes -
Feature
Open Process Automation: Open Controllers and Decoupling Field I/O
Bill Lydon discusses the benefits of OPAF’s using existing standards rather than falling into the “we are different” trap and creating new standards.By: Bill Lydon29 February, 2024 | 6 minutes -
Feature
Open Process Automation: Status Update from ARC Forum 2024
Progress has been made on achieving the vision of an Open Process Automation system architecture.By: Bill Lydon20 February, 2024 | 5 minutes -
Feature
Rockwell Automation Expanding Scope Beyond Controls & Automation: Automation Fair 2023
Rockwell Automation (ROK) continues to evolve beyond the company's traditional industrial controls and automation business through acquisitions and growing service business.By: Bill Lydon12 December, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Fast and Actionable Machine Analytics: A Chemical Processor Case Study
At the 27th Annual ARC Industry Forum, the director of operations excellence at LSB Industries described how analytics delivered results in a short time.By: Bill Lydon28 July, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Fast and Actionable Machine Analytics: ARC Forum 2023
Brian Wolf, director, Operations Excellence at LSB Industries, described the rapid application of analytics getting results in a short time at the 27th Annual ARC Industry Forum.By: Bill Lydon11 July, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Procter & Gamble's Jeff Kent Discusses AI and Machine Learning
Jeff Kent, vice president, Smart Platforms Technology & Innovation at Procter & Gamble, discussed experience with the application of AI and machine learning at the ARC Forum 2023.By: Bill Lydon09 June, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
PureCycle Technologies' Born Digital Innovative Plastic Recycling Plant
PureCycle Technologies' mission is to transform plastic waste into an infinitely sustainable material ending the culture of single-use plastic and created to truly circular economy.By: Bill Lydon19 May, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Pfizer's 6-year Industrial Digital Transformation Journey and Results
Manufacturing management is increasingly recognizing the importance of manufacturing digitalization is a fundamental part of business strategy.By: Bill Lydon12 May, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Dow’s Private Cellular Network Empowers Manufacturing People
Clark Dressen, Dow Corporation global director, described extending the reach of systems with the application of private 5G networks at the 27th Annual ARC Industry Forum.By: Bill Lydon11 May, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
PassiveLogic Autonomous Buildings Vision Showcased at AHR 2023
PassiveLogic aims to create standards, system architecture and products that incorporate building design and modeling to directly configure and program the company's Hive autonomous building automation and control units.By: Bill Lydon21 April, 2023 | 5 minutes -
Feature
ODVA Supports Process Industry by Incorporating NE 107 & PA-DIM Data Format in EtherNet/IP Protocol
The ODVA announced another step towards supporting the process automation industry during the Hannover Messe/Fair April 17, 2023, adding NE 107 & PA-DIM Compatible Data Formats to the EtherNet/IP Specification.By: Bill Lydon21 April, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Remote Multivendor Digital Packaging Machine Services at the 27th Annual ARC Industry Forum
The New division SEA Smart Service Link has increased customer satisfaction enabling higher packaging equipment performance and functionality while creating new revenues for Sealed Air.By: Bill Lydon06 April, 2023 | 2 minutes -
Feature
Industrial Single Pair Ethernet (SPE) Update: Industrial Ethernet Week 2023
The Industrial Ethernet Week 2023 presentations provided an update on the technology and the importance of connectivity to achieve the goals of industrial digitalization/Industry 4.0.By: Bill Lydon29 March, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
ODVA Ethernet-APL and PA-DIM Commitments Support Open Automation
Presentations at the ODVA SPS Press Conference indicated elements needed to meet the goals of open systems initiatives, including NAMUR Open Architecture, Open Process Automation Forum, Open Process Automation Standards and FDT Group.By: Bill Lydon24 March, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Increasing Manufacturing Information Efficiency
Industrial digitalization advances are providing new, cost-effective tools to significantly improve timely and accurate information flows and WIP (Work In Process) tracking, which improves manufacturing efficiency, quality and profits.By: Bill Lydon20 March, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Digitalizing Manufacturing: 27th Annual ARC 2023 Industry Forum in Orlando
Bill Lydon offers insights about digitalizing manufacturing that he gleaned from the 27th Annual ARC Industry Forum in Orlando, Florida.By: Bill Lydon16 March, 2023 | 5 minutes -
Feature
Single Major Automation Vendor Architecture Myth
Manufacturers who plan to be competitive, increase profits and grow no longer believe the single major automation vendor architecture myth.By: Bill Lydon27 February, 2023 | 5 minutes -
Feature
IT Standards Accelerate Industrial Control and Automation Plug-and-Play Data Mapping
Microsoft’s Erich Barnstedt, in collaboration with Siemens, is taking the lead to simplify and automate the mapping of industrial field device data tags using discoverable data models.By: Bill Lydon23 February, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Conquering Electric Vehicle Myopia
Automation professionals are an important contributor to architecting, designing and deploying systems for effective reliability, availability and quality of electric vehicle initiatives throughout the world.By: Bill Lydon03 February, 2023 | 4 minutes -
Feature
World Economic Forum Lighthouse Project: Rockwell 2022 Automation Perspectives
The Lighthouse project is a response to the global manufacturing industry lagging the adoption of advanced technologies.By: Bill Lydon02 February, 2023 | 3 minutes -
News
PLC Industrial Controller Software Quality: Your Opinion Matters
Integrating existing metrics for code quality into software engineering workflows has benefits. Takes the survey to contribute your thoughts on the subject.By: Bill Lydon26 January, 2023 | 1 minute -
Opinion
Industry 4.0: Focus on Results, Not Industry Spin and Buzzwords
Industrial revolutions are changing our lives over decades, and they are not just covering technologies but also advances in new businesses and applications. This feature originally appeared in the December 2022 issue of InTech magazine.By: Bill Lydon12 January, 2023 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Mentoring: Paying It Forward Enriches You
Synergy is defined as two or more things functioning together to produce a superior result not independently obtainable. This feature originally appeared in the October 2022 issue of InTech magazine.By: Bill Lydon14 December, 2022 | 2 minutes -
Feature
OPC Foundation Showcases Industrial Digitalization Integrated Architecture at SPS 2022
The OPC Foundation continues to prove it is the strongest and broadest open multivendor standards ecosystem for building integrated digital manufacturing businesses.By: Bill Lydon09 December, 2022 | 6 minutes -
Feature
Open Standards, Global Initiatives Help Modernize Operations
Organizations are driving forward to provide roadmaps, models, and standards for manufacturing digitalization. This feature originally appeared in Bill Lydon's 7th Annual Industrial Automation & Control Trends Report.By: Bill Lydon01 December, 2022 | 7 minutes -
Feature
Transformative Technologies Move Automation Forward
System-wide Internet protocol communications, 5G wireless, OPC standards, and more are transforming industrial systems. This feature originally appeared in Bill Lydon's 7th Annual Industrial Automation & Control Trends Report.By: Bill Lydon28 November, 2022 | 12 minutes -
Feature
Next-Generation Biotechnology Manufacturing: Genentech Small-Batch Biologics
Bill Lydon discusses the new Genentech Clinical Supply Center with Genentech’s Benedicte Lebreton, VP, head of Technical Development for Biologics US.By: Bill Lydon28 November, 2022 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Societal Megatrends Drive Opportunities and Requirements
From workforce changes and supply chain disruptions to evolution of semantic data models, socioeconomic trends push industry to respond. This feature originally appeared in Bill Lydon's 7th Annual Industrial Automation & Control Trends Report.By: Bill Lydon11 November, 2022 | 5 minutes -
Feature
Manufacturing Business Systems Become Integrated, Real Time and Data Driven
Significant advances in technology, communications, and software enable digital manufacturing synchronization across the entire business structure. This feature originally appeared in Bill Lydon's 7th Annual Industrial Automation & Control Trends Report.By: Bill Lydon10 November, 2022 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Evolving Industrial Edge Computing Architecture
The traditional strict hierarchy architecture is giving way to a more responsive and direct model, bringing manufacturing into a real-time manufacturing business model.By: Bill Lydon09 November, 2022 | 4 minutes -
Feature
Digital Manufacturing Facts and Myths
Digital Manufacturing is a powerful concept manufacturing companies need to embrace to be successful, but there seems to be some confusion about the most important facts, particularly technology implementations that have created some myths.By: Bill Lydon03 November, 2022 | 5 minutes -
Feature
No-Code Slays the Manufacturing Paper Tiger
How to increase manufacturing efficiency using no-code app development to digitize outdated paper forms.By: Bill Lydon07 October, 2022 | 3 minutes -
Feature
Open Standards & Global Initiatives Accelerate Industrial Digitalization
Open standards accelerate industrial digitalization by freeing users to create and allowing collaboration.By: Bill Lydon03 October, 2022 | 2 minutes -
Feature
Real-Time Is Where It’s at with Integrated Manufacturing Business Systems
Integrated manufacturing business systems are executing and processing real-time transactions, allowing companies to thrive in the Internet era and meet the needs of customers and the modern supply chain.By: Bill Lydon20 September, 2022 | 1 minutes -
Feature
Collaboration is Key to an Automation Professionals' Role in the Digital Revolution
Significant transformational change requires system analysis to integrate IT, OT, automation and controls to achieve efficient and responsive synchronized production. This feature originally appeared in InTech magazine's August issue, a special edition from ISA's Smart Manufacturing and IIoT Division.By: Bill Lydon22 August, 2022 | 2 minutes -
Feature
Optimize Energy Efficiency and Sustainability
Recent energy price escalation, supply chain issues, and world events are putting renewed emphasis on more efficient energy use. This feature originally appeared in the June 2022 issue of InTech magazine.By: Bill Lydon29 July, 2022 | 2 minutes -
Feature
Interview: ExxonMobil Striving to Achieve Open Automation Joins UniversalAutomation.Org
Bill Lydon talks with Ryan Smeltzer, OPA program manager for ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, about the company’s commitment to open automation.By: Bill Lydon30 June, 2022 | 5 minutes
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