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ISA Offers Thought Leadership for the Automation Profession
Subject matter experts from the ISA community have authored a variety of position papers and white papers on key areas of focus for the automation profession.
Precision agriculture represents a transformative approach to farming, leveraging advanced technologies to optimize agricultural productivity, enhance resource efficiency and promote sustainable practices. Robust industrial control system (ICS) frameworks play a key role in advancing precision agriculture. Establishing comprehensive ICS standards and enhancing educational initiatives will support the widespread adoption and effective implementation of precision agriculture technologies.
Automation has long supported developed and developing economies by increasing productivity, reducing costs, improving quality, enhancing safety and providing greater reliability. Automation technologies have also reduced human workloads, transformed labor markets and increased access to goods and services while reducing environmental impacts across all sectors of industry and infrastructure.
In the coming years, automation will continue to provide these many benefits as its scope widens, enhancing such areas as supply chain resilience and global energy efficiency and sustainability. At the same time, however, the automation profession will require skilled and experienced engineers and other professionals as it repurposes existing jobs, creates new ones and balances workforce skills shortages by enabling greater productivity.
Given recent supply chain disruptions, geopolitical instability and protectionism, inflationary conditions and demands for increased corporate social responsibility and environmental social governance, a variety of pressures are driving a trend toward deglobalization. While businesses seek to secure themselves from uncertainty, increase resilience and mitigate risk, they also need to mitigate consequences and meet demands from investors and the public. Automation technology and techniques implemented by knowledgeable and skilled automation professionals can help businesses optimize their digital deglobalization efforts, secure their supply chain infrastructure and support improvements to environmental and social responsibility.
Advanced automation technologies, implemented by knowledgeable and skilled professionals, are being employed across the entire infrastructure of energy production, storage and transmission to keep global energy supplies safe, efficient and secure while meeting these demands of the future. Energy production that is efficient, sustainable and safe depends upon automation technologies and people working together to implement the most creative and innovative solutions.
The global pandemic and political instability have forced many manufacturers to shift their operations closer to home as they seek to increase efficiencies and reduce supply chain risks. Manufacturers can optimize their efforts to adapt and strengthen their supply chains by relying on automation technologies, including:
Adopting flexible manufacturing principles to allow for more dynamic responses to changes in production demands, raw material availability, and ongoing shortages of skilled labor, providing greater resilience during periods of crisis
Embracing the wider use of technologies, such as IoT, robotics, blockchain, and artificial intelligence, in their automation strategies to mitigate differences in cost from onshore to offshore, while increasing accuracy, supply chain visibility, and customer satisfaction
Recognizing and following industry standards that advance interoperability, quality assurance, and safety throughout the supply chain
Adopting industrial automation and control systems cybersecurity standards and conformity assessment programs to protect their operations against operational impacts from intentional and unintentional incidents – and to protect their intellectual property
Advances in manufacturing, technology, sustainability, and safety will all depend upon automation technologies and people working together to bring the most creative and innovative solutions to bear.
Automation does not eliminate jobs, as some have feared; rather, it repurposes existing jobs and creates new ones. As a society, our focus should be on preparing our workforce to meet the high and growing demand for engineers and technicians. We must educate enough people to be well versed in automation technologies, as well as the industry standards and conformance programs that support the automation field.
Cybersecurity threats and vulnerabilities pose a clear and present danger to our facilities, our processes, and the safety of our communities. But when most people think about cybersecurity, they focus on what are commonly considered information technology (IT) challenges impacting individual equipment or networks. While these are valid concerns, the impact on the facility or its operation from equipment or network compromise is much more concerning.
This position paper aims to address how policy makers and private-sector leaders can be best equipped to address the urgent need for improved critical infrastructure cybersecurity through globally relevant standards and conformance programs, as well as strong support for the community of engineers and automation professionals working every day to keep our facilities, processes, and communities safe.
Automation offers new ways to accelerate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) activities across manufacturing, industry, and beyond. This ISA position paper offers specific recommendations for organizations seeking to demonstrate ESG leadership through the application of automation technologies and systems, including:
Relying upon advanced sensors and other automation technologies to reduce the risk of injury to personnel by isolating hazardous processes
Providing accountability and transparency by surfacing data and offering objective analysis
Creating new jobs and upskilling opportunities as needs and technologies evolve
A more complete library of ISA white papers and additional technical content can be accessed by ISA members on Pub Hub, the Society’s vast library of content and information.
