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Anyone with a smartphone or tablet now can connect securely in an industrial setting to access performance metrics and data analytics, according to Rockwell Automation’s mobility platform leader Kyle Reissner.

You can use any digital device to easily access performance metrics and data analytics from your plant floor and machines, he says.

That mobility is more than viewing a webpage or report on your tablet; it’s a fundamental shift.

“Now, anyone with a device can connect securely, expand their area of influence, deploy a system more quickly and achieve quicker time to value.”

To achieve this, however, things have to change, according to Reissner.

“Some people are using the latest devices to extend 20-year-old technology. That type of mobility is resulting in very small increases in productivity, in the range of one to two per cent.

“I suggest a loftier goal for mobility – 10 per cent – and for everyone in the plant, not just one or two people.”

Reissner describes this as “the fourth dimension of mobility”.

“It’s thinking outside the spherical world, to the place where we get mobile productivity to everyone with zero friction.

“When you move between devices seamlessly, and when you are more responsive, that’s how you bring productivity improvement into double digits.”

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