Schneider Electric extends partnerships, unveils new industrial edge solutions

Energy management and automation company Schneider Electric has announced a widespread expansion of its partnerships with prominent tech companies, in a move the company says is aimed to address the convergence of IT and OT.

The new partnership programme focuses on bolstering industrial edge computing solutions with its partners and has already resulted in the release of three industrial edge programmes.

"The smart factory is becoming smarter," says Schneider Electric senior vice president of industrial automation Philippe Rambach.

"Our expanded partnerships and new industrial edge programs empower system integrators to leverage their domain expertise and become IT/OT convergence specialists and meet these needs for their customers.

"We know that smart manufacturing is driving an unprecedented wave of IT technologies into industrial spaces," says Rambach.

"As companies leverage AI, robotic processing automation, and more, they will require edge computing solutions to reduce latency and enable resiliency, while ensuring privacy and security, and addressing important data and bandwidth requirements.

Here are the three newly announced industrial edge programs:

Co-developed with AVEVA, Schneider has introduced its new industrial edge reference designs, which includes solutions from Lenovo and Stratus.

Schneider Electric says the designs reduce risk and time to market, with customisable EcoStruxure Micro Data Center solutions for any edge environment.

Based on the most common use cases in industrial automation, system integrators can free up time from the IT architecture to focus on the software and solutions, according to the company.

This learning program recognises the trend toward edge computing and lets system integrators extend their business model and further establish their role as consultants in both OT and IT requirements.

It includes digital training for these integrators, with a focus on EcoStruxure Micro Data Center and EcoStruxure IT solutions and how they can address common challenges at the edge.

The 14-session development program focuses on how to leverage the reference designs and IT solution providers to deliver complete IT/OT convergence solutions for end-users.

Using this new community lets integrators identify and engage with edge-certified IT solution providers, with its design specifically aimed at providing new business for IT and OT projects.

It also includes a tool that pairs Alliance System Integrators with Schneider Electric's Edge-certified IT Channel Partners.

"The industrial edge is one of the fastest-growing segments of industrial automation and a key driver that is influencing digital transformation," says ARC Advisory Group vice president Craig Resnick.

"To achieve the shortest possible ROI, manufacturers must properly measure asset performance, rapidly identify any problem areas, and make any crucial changes in real-time that will drastically improve their operations.

"The industrial edge is where this important on-site data capture occurs, real-time analysis of this data is performed and converted into intelligent information, and then shared with the cloud and throughout the entire enterprise while addressing manufacturers' concerns, such as latency and security for production environments.