Inductive Automation Blog

History of Industry: From 0.0 to 5.0

Explore how the evolution of humans, processes, and technology progressed us through the first industrial revolution and beyond. Follow the journey from the first engine, electricity, PLCs, and the Internet, and into the modern digital era. Discover what each industrial revolution contributed to human-machine collaboration. Then, find out how industrial automation and Ignition will level up industry into the future.

Making Music: Ignition in Manufacturing at Taylor Guitars

Taylor Guitars, a leading manufacturer of acoustic guitars and other musical equipment, first adopted Ignition for more cohesive HVAC monitoring. Soon after, new projects such as guitar neck quality control, legacy CNC monitoring, and UV print control have all been implemented through Ignition. Learn how Ignition helped a small engineering team at Taylor Guitars say “yes” to most production requests in manufacturing.

Achieving Scale With Ignition and Modern DevOps Practices

Get a front-row seat to a real-world project scaling Ignition with DevOps tools like Kubernetes, Helm, Argo CD, and Git-Sync. In this session you’ll get an overview of these tools, examples of automated and GitOps-driven deployments, and practical tips for boosting performance, reliability, and operations in a large-scale, complex, critical systems environment.

Ready to Level Up Your Machine Monitoring Game?

Do you have dark, unconnected operational data stranded on the plant floor or in the field? While Ignition excels at connecting PLC-based equipment, many assets without PLCs or smart devices can be far more challenging. Join this session to discover how to use edge industrial I/O to securely link almost any equipment to Ignition – including simple sensors – enhancing your plant's production tracking and operational awareness. You’ll also see real-world case studies, including the story of a Tier 1 automotive supplier that successfully implemented these techniques, improving efficiency, creating a Unified Namespace (UNS), and advancing its digitalization efforts as a result.

Tapping Tag Data Flows With SDK Actors

Ignition's Java API makes it easy to tap into raw data flows in the tag subsystem, allowing an SDK module to efficiently monitor, modify, or intercept values. This API can tie into the tag property model to present your features in the designer's Tag Editor with little or no UI code, blending into the Tag Editor like IA's own native features. The Ignition Tag Actor Pipeline will be reviewed in detail in this session, with code examples, implementation ideas, and known pitfalls to avoid.

Hello AI, Meet Ignition: Leveraging LLMs in the Ignition Ecosystem

Explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Large Language Models (LLMs) can enhance the Ignition platform in practical, effective ways. This session will introduce approachable methods for integrating LLMs into your industrial systems — no advanced AI expertise required. Learn how to use LLMs to streamline development, generate insights from historical data, automate repetitive tasks, and improve operator interfaces. We’ll walk through client use cases, development tools, and project management examples to show how LLMs can add value without adding complexity.

Reducing Muda (Waste) Via Digital Tools

Toyota's IIoT team delivers an innovative data management solution that transforms OT/IT systems by eliminating Digital Muda (waste) via centralized, standardized data collection, enhancing efficiency, data integrity, and real-time decision-making for manufacturing operations. Its scalable, user-friendly design, paired with automated configuration and alert systems, empowers agile operations and drives transformative business value.