As each year comes to an end, I like to take some time to reflect on the past year and think about the trends that impacted the manufacturing sector in general, our customers, and our business throughout the year. For 2024, one overarching industry trend that drove a lot of our business is that manufacturers are continuing to seek ways they can accelerate growth by incorporating Industry 4.0 tools into their existing processes. As a result, we are continuing to see increased demand for advanced technologies such as digital twins while many key industry vendors remain focused on investing in driving efficiency gains by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into their tools.

While these trends were similar to what we experienced in 2023, a key difference is that in 2024, we saw a greater focus on bringing efficiency gains to the engineering process for automation solutions. As a result, manufacturers are looking to integrators such as ACE to leverage new tools and processes as they incorporate Industry 4.0 technologies into existing facilities to enhance operational efficiency, increase productivity, and reduce downtime. Below are my thoughts on how our team saw these trends impact the industry, our customers, and our business throughout the past year, and how these impacts will continue to magnify throughout 2025. 

Amplifying Investment in Industry 4.0 Software Tools

In 2024, key industry partners such as Rockwell Automation and Siemens continued to make significant investments in optimizing the tools we need to help our industrial clients accelerate growth. For example, in 2024, we participated in an early adopter program for Rockwell Automation’s FactoryTalk Design Studio, which is a collection of cloud-based collaborative design tools. During this trial, our team saw huge potential for FactoryTalk Design Studio to connect design teams, streamline development, and boost productivity, which we know will translate to faster development cycles for our customers.

Another larger industry-wide trend we are seeing that we think will benefit our customers in the near future is the shift to more automation solutions adopting a cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) model. As this transition happens, we are already seeing benefits including the ability to scale faster with better diagnostics and problem resolution as a result of features such as remote access to real-time data.

Bringing Generative AI into the Programming Process

In 2023, we highlighted a number of operational improvements now possible through the use of AI-powered software such as vision systems, analytics tools, and demand forecasting software. Now, this year we’re seeing more instances where generative AI is being incorporated into engineering tools to help accelerate the development process for automation solutions.

For example, one feature of Rockwell Automation’s new FactoryTalk Design Studio platform that we tested this past year is a generative AI Copilot. While other vendors are rolling out similar tools as well, this tool specifically takes a query written in plain text and generates the appropriate PLC code using Microsoft Azure’s Open AI platform.

We also see a lot of potential for the use of generative AI when it comes to tasks such as debugging and testing software or optimizing configurations such as PID controller settings and motor control parameters. These solutions are poised to help us accelerate growth for our industrial clients by enabling faster development cycles.

Sharing Insight into Common Conversations with Our Customers

While each year I find myself focusing on bigger industry trends, this year I noticed some more localized trends within our business as we have conversations with our customers that I thought might be helpful to share as well. While these trends aren’t necessarily a result of emerging tools and technologies, it seemed worthwhile to bring forward some of the common experiences our customers are having and how we’re addressing these items.

• Bringing MES Data to All Stakeholders – By integrating the MES with broader business processes, we can enable information to flow freely between production and business processes. This helps customers combine real-time plant floor data with enterprise-level insights for more strategic decision making across the organization.
• Focusing on Disaster Recovery – While the importance of OT cybersecurity has been central to many conversations with customers over the past several years, platform-level cybersecurity incidents such as those that occurred with Cloudflare and CrowdStrike in 2024 brought the need for appropriate disaster recovery planning to the forefront for many manufacturers.
• Systemizing Tribal Knowledge – As manufacturers continue to grapple with workforce challenges, especially long-time operators retiring, we find ourselves doing a lot of work to systemize existing processes in a way that ensures tribal knowledge is retained. This work includes everything from incorporating alarm rationalization to ensure alarms are in order to fine tuning process safety systems.

Strategically Growing to Support Our Customer’s Growth

As manufacturers become increasingly strapped for time and resources, we know they need a partner they can trust to serve in more of an advisory role. This shift has been exciting as we now find ourselves getting involved in projects much sooner to help with more strategic decisions ranging from determining the scope of work for a project to identifying which tools and technologies are the right fit for a customer’s unique needs.

As this shift continues, we want to be sure we are prepared to serve our customers exactly how they need us to. Therefore, we are in the midst of making a significant investment in preparing our future workforce. In 2024, we expanded our staff by 15 percent. Many of these hires were recent college graduates that we are bringing into the industry to help serve customers well into the future. 

We are also increasing our commitment to engaging students in engineering jobs focused on manufacturing and automation by continuing to commit to a number of student outreach opportunities and actively recruiting at several colleges and universities near our offices. In 2024, we also expanded our ownership to ensure we are prepared to best support current and future customers and guarantee their continued success.

Finally, as a leadership team, we are extremely proud to support the increased involvement of our employees in prominent industry organizations. This includes the International Society of Automation (ISA), where one employee is serving as the President of the Denver chapter, and the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering, where another employee is serving as the Delaware Valley Section Vice President of the GAMP® Communities of Practice.

Looking for ideas on how to optimize your industrial processes in 2025 and beyond? Chat with an ACE expert today.