Representative End User Clients
Representative Automation Clients
Representative Software Clients
Bosch Connected World (BCW) is a two-day conference and exhibition that focuses on IoT and digital transformation. It is one of the few industrial house events that can bring together a wide variety of customers, ecosystem partners and “coopetitors”. Parent company Robert Bosch offers a diversified portfolio of mechanical, electrical and software solutions that also service niche areas of industrial technology. Rexroth is the Bosch company responsible for drive and control solutions. ARC was invited for the first time this year to participate and take a closer look at CtrlX, the Rexroth solution for logic and motion control launched in 2020.
The Importance of the Ecosystem
When developing CtrlX, Rexroth has developed the core of a new IoT-enabled control platform, relying on an ecosystem of partners to supply the rest, instead of creating an end-to-end solution from the start. It is based on a modular and open software platform that allows users to customize their applications with various components and services from the ecosystem. It is neither a PLC nor a motion controller, but instead these functions and others can run next to each other on the platform. This approach navigates past the traditional rigid automation hierarchy to create a data-driven architecture, according to the company.
CtrlX consists of an automation core with a common data layer over which apps can exchange data and take advantage of systems services. Rexroth themselves offers apps for drives, PLC, IO management and safety in its CtrlX Works engineering tools. On the hardware side, the company offers a variety of host devices and other options. For CtrlX users, the real value comes from the complementary products and solutions offered by over 90 ecosystem partners, and an app store that currently offers 65 apps, half of which are from partner vendors. A further advantage of CtrlX is its open platform that can be licensed by other suppliers. Last year, WAGO announced plans to use the CtrlX OS in WAGO I/O Systems. This ecosystem approach might be the most valuable lesson that OT suppliers have learned from the IT world in the past decade.
Shifting North
According to Rexroth, the next step for CtrlX is to “shift north”, meaning expanding its reach from the field or OT level into the IT space up “north”. For device suppliers, it makes sense to license a system that was developed specifically for industrial applications. By making the CtrlX OS available to devices and applications outside of the OT domain, Rexroth can guide its open system on the long journey to becoming a quasi industry standard. Even if it doesn’t conquer the world, this strategy is clever.
For learn more about ARC’s experiences at Bosch Connected World please read the article on LinkedIn.