The world is changing and new trends, technologies and business models will always prevail. Or as Heraclitus said about 2500 years ago: “Panta Rhei – everything flows”. This statement is based on his recognition of the natural process of constant becoming and change. Now this phenomenon has also reached process automation. This has always been known as conservative and also as sluggish. At least as far as the fact of adapting new technologies is concerned. The process industry is also constantly confronted with new challenges and must exploit the opportunities provided by digitization. The process automation community is quite proud of clear structures that guarantee high availability and functional security. This refers to the automation pyramid (photo: NAMUR), which, despite all its advantages, is unfortunately the brake pad for the digital transformation of the process industry. Everything within the pyramid is structured. NAMUR’s proposal is now on the table with an open architecture that combines the availability and safety of the automation pyramid with the advantages of digital transformation. In short: the NAMUR open architecture (Photo: NAMUR), abbreviated NOA.
