Industrial automation suppliers face a difficult balancing act. Introduce AI, analytics, and connectivity while preserving the deterministic control and availability customers depend on. Adding intelligence cannot come at the expense of the functions that keep operations running.

For QNX, the path forward is architectural evolution, not wholesale replacement. The ARC Advisory Group examines this approach in its new paper, An Industrial Automation Framework for the Software Defined Era, exploring how manufacturers can introduce software-defined capabilities around existing industrial assets. The report puts a critical question in focus: how do you consolidate more functionality without compromising the workloads that matter most?

Modernise Around What Already Works

The QNX approach starts by recognising the value of established automation infrastructure. PLCs retain responsibility for field-level deterministic control and certified safety functions, while multicore processors and edge platforms take on supervisory control, AI, analytics, connectivity, cybersecurity and lifecycle management. Manufacturers can preserve proven investments while progressively adding new capabilities.

But consolidation demands more than processing power. As ARC explains, less-critical applications must not corrupt, delay or destabilise safety-critical functions. Isolation of memory, timing and faults becomes central to the architecture, rather than something to address after workloads have been brought together.

That makes the underlying software platform a strategic choice, not simply an implementation detail.

Servomex: Protecting Core Functions While Doing More

The report brings that choice into focus through Servomex, a manufacturer of industrial gas analysers. Its instruments support applications where precision, availability and reliability are essential, including process control, quality assurance, safety and emissions management.

One reason Servomex cited for selecting QNX was the need to maintain the availability of core measurement and control services while running less-critical support functions on the same hardware platform. Its experience illustrates the challenge facing industrial suppliers, bringing functions together without putting essential services at risk.

ARC also highlights the broader opportunity behind consolidation. Fewer hardware platforms can mean reduced hardware costs, lower power consumption, simpler designs, and faster deployment.

Think Beyond Deployment

The software decision also reaches well beyond day-one performance. ARC argues that industrial suppliers must account for secure updates, component transparency, vulnerability handling, and long-term support throughout a product’s operating life. The report supports QNX’s approach around deterministic, safe, and secure platforms capable of supporting mixed-criticality workloads.

For manufacturers planning their next generation of industrial products, the question is not just what new capabilities to add. It is what foundation will support them responsibly.