Control Amplified

Control Editor-in-Chief Len Vermillion recaps his thoughts from ARC Forum 2025 in Orlando. While winning with artificial intelligence (AI) dominated the conversation, the migration of Foundation Fieldbus to Ethernet APL is also on the minds of CEOs these days. 

In this episode of Control Amplified, Editor in Chief Len Vermillion looks at the journey of artificial intelligence (AI) in industrial operations. He gets help from the words of Dustin Johnson, chief technology officer at Seeq; Tathagata Basu, global head and general of sustainable fuels and chemicals at Honeywell; and John Rezabek, process controls specialist, Ashland Inc.

Among the topics:

• Strategic planning for generative AI (GenAI)
• Efficient data analytics
• Human-AI interaction
• Technical training challenges

Control editor in chief Len Vermillion and Joe Weiss - managing partner of Applied Control Solutions Inc., ISA99 ICS cybersecurity pioneer, 2024 Process Automation Hall of Fame honoree and Unfettered blog author - sit down for a discussion on cybersecurity. What should everyone know about cybersecurity? And what can we do to represent cybersecurity appropriately?

In the first Control Amplified podcast of 2025, wireless technology expert Ian Verhappen joins Len Vermillion for a discussion on the past, present and future of wireless technology for industrial operations.
Among their topics are the fast advances and usage of wireless in industrial plants, why Wi-Fi advancement enables more efficient operations, the growing influence of Bluetooth Low Energy on the plant floor, and the need for cybersecurity to advance in lock step with these technologies.
In addition, they look at the process for adopting new technologies in industry and why software will be the focus of development over the next decade.

In this final episode of 2024, Control’s editor in chief, Len Vermillion and Jesse Yoder discuss the future of flowmeters in renewable energy application. Climate change is almost universally recognized by governments worldwide, and many large corporations make combating climate change a priority. Reducing reliance on fossil fuels and substituting renewable energy in their place is chief among these efforts, and flowmeters are in the middle of growing those technologies.

Editor in chief Len Vermillion calls upon executive editor Jim Montague, who wrote a very informative cover story for the November issue of Control on cybersecurity with a series featuring seven systems integrators, now on Control Global.

Len will read the first of that series to get a taste for where Jim’s reporting is going and what engineers can learn about the ever-important topic of OT cybersecurity in process control.

One of those stories is a tale of system integrator Eosys Group, which helped a Tier 1 automotive parts manufacturer protect its plant and enterprise networks.

In this episode of Control Amplified, editor in chief Len Vermillion runs down highlights from the Safety and Risk Conference at the Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University and Aveva World 2024 in Paris.

Len Vermillion and the rest of the Control team was in Houston for Yokogawa’s YNOW users’ conference during the week of Oct. 28. He came away with five key points that were made throughout the conference, topics that found their way into several sessions that were on the tops of people’s minds.

It’s already been three years since Emerson unveiled the concept of Boundless Automation as its future vision of operational technology architecture at Emerson Exchange 2021 in Nashville. How has the automation landscape evolved since then?

Joining Control publisher Keith Larson for a wide-ranging discussion on AI, sustainability, Boundless Automation and a bit of a preview of next spring’s Emerson Exchange Americas event in San Antonio, is Peter Zornio, chief technology officer for Emerson.

Resilience, the ability to carry on in the face of adversity, is a hot topic among those who manage industrial systems. Automatic server failover is an important building block for making automation systems resilient. Not long ago, this was a luxury only large systems could afford. With increased accountability and advances in technology, industrial users of every size are now obliged to consider how redundancy can increase system resilience. 
Chris Little, media relations director at Trihedral Engineering Limited, creators of VTScada software, talked with Control about five questions users must ask to ensure a new SCADA application will support redundancy.