This year, with all of the economic challenges facing manufacturers, staying competitive is going to require cost reductions, increased productivity and efficiencies, innovation and the adoption of new technologies to help achieve these goals. We asked five industry experts to name the top five technologies and trends that will impact Canadian and worldwide manufacturers in 2010 and beyond.

Author and Topic Index

Jim Pinto
1. Industrial wireless.
2. Embedded intelligence and M2M.
3. Cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS).
4. Plant and factory security systems.
5. Robots are coming.

Eric Byres
1. Industrial security and safety integration.
2. Industrial wireless.
3. Virtualization.
4. Industrial cloud computing.
5. Host Identity Protocol (HIP) for control systems.

Marc Ostertag
1. Integrated safety.
2. Energy-efficient drive systems.
3. Predictive maintenance.
4. Remote machine monitoring and maintenance.
5. Embedded communication services.

Anders Lif
1. Usability enhancements.
2. The integration of the “top floor and shop floor.”
3. Convergence of IT and SCADA.
4. Mash-ups.
5. Shrinking workforce tech.

Sal Spada
1. Adaptive production machinery.
2. Design tools integrated with automation for mechatronic optimization.
3. Robotic safeguarding solutions.
4. Sensor networks become viable options.
5. Motion control safety functionality improves machine utilization.