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24 SMT007 MAGAZINE I MARCH 2018 Feature Article by Michael Ford AEGIS SOFTWARE The introduction of a fundamental new tech- nology in 2018 is poised to be the catalyst for the now long-awaited Industry 4.0 revolution. What is coming is not a single master Industry 4.0 solution as people may expect, but rather the opportunity for everyone in the industry to play their part, re-evaluating what can be done in their processes or products to take maxi- mum advantage of the new CFX-fueled Indus- trial IoT environment. It's time for everyone to get a serious heads-up. If Industrial IoT were a transport infrastruc- ture, we would look back on this time as when trails and dirt-tracks were replaced with paved roads and highways, enabling the development and evolutions of high-performance automo- biles. Not everyone today buys or drives the same car. There is no single perfect model or configuration for all, but the one thing that we can rely on, is that all our cars work and co-exist on the same road network. This is the principle also for IoT solutions, though in the CFX world, there are no toll roads, no compet- ing commercial options that we would have to pay subscriptions and have to select what road network vendor we wish to use. No matter what the intent, scale budget or capability, many individual IoT solutions are going to be developed to support specific busi- ness needs, which will run through the same IoT infrastructure. As we have seen with auto- mobiles replacing horses and carts, the expec- tations are changed, for example in terms of distances that can be covered, the time taken for journeys and the amount of baggage or freight that can be carried. With the CFX Indus- trial IoT solution, we are not simply seeing a horse that can run a little faster, or a cart with a couple more wheels, this is a real revolu- tion and a fundamental change to what can be achieved. The IPC Connected Factory Exchange (CFX) standard specification defines all three major Industry 4.0 Technologies: If Only I Had Known