Schneider Electric India announces Open Automation Movement – CRN

Schneider Electric has launched the Open Automation Movement, a bold initiative aimed at liberalising industrial automation and making it more accessible through Open, software-defined automation. The software-driven, vendor-agnostic automation solutions from Schneider Electric enable industries to move beyond rigid, closed systems, empowering them with plug-and-play capabilities, seamless data flow, and greater operational flexibility. By embracing open automation, industries can enhance performance and agility, driving greater engineering efficiency and future-proofs operations for maximum effectiveness and innovation, marking a significant step-change in how industrial systems are designed, operated, and optimised.

This movement by Schneider Electric is a nationwide call to action, bringing together industry bodies, industry leaders, engineers, developers and other stakeholders to create greater awareness and adoption of open, software defined automation as customers strive for greater operational agility, digital transformation and sustainability acceleration in India.

Highlighting the importance of this initiative, Deepak Sharma, Zone President – Greater India, MD & CEO, Schneider Electric India, said, “The key to unlocking India’s Viksit Bharat potential lies in the bold shift towards intelligent, sustainable, and future-proof industrialisation. Our call for Software-defined Open Automation is more than a technological advancement; it’s an invitation for India Inc. to break free from the limitations of the legacy systems and embrace a new era of liberalisation of industrial automation backed by interoperability, vendor independence and enabling robust data extraction. Thus, we provide the connectivity needed for advanced analytics, both at the edge and in the cloud. We believe this is the bedrock upon which India will build its thriving Industries of the Future, where software empowers unprecedented agility and scalability.”

India’s industrial revolution, crucial for its global economic ambitions, demands a break from legacy automation. The outdated infrastructures, characterised by single-vendor lock-in and complex maintenance, impede the operational resilience, flexibility, and data transparency demanded by today’s market. Recognising the importance of this critical juncture, Schneider Electric’s Open Automation Movement aims to be a catalyst for this industrial transformation, by creating a robust ecosystem involving industry leaders, policymakers, engineers, and developers, all committed towards democratising automation. The cornerstone of this movement is Schneider Electric’s

EcoStruxure Automation Expert (EAE), a solution that fundamentally decouples hardware from software, facilitating flexible system design, faster integration, and effortless scalability.

“This isn’t an incremental improvement; the move to Open, Software Defined Automation is a fundamental revolution in industrial operations,” states Arvind Kakru, Vice President, Industrial Automation, Schneider Electric India. “With EcoStruxure™ Automation Expert, Schneider Electric is architecting truly interoperable and modular systems that shatter vendor dependencies, accelerate engineering, and seamlessly bridge the IT-OT divide for optimised lifecycles. Open Automation is the catalyst empowering India to forge resilient, efficient, and sustainable industrial ecosystems, where digitalisation drives precise control for radical energy reduction. By orchestrating industrial systems and enabling robust data flow for advanced analytics, we’re simplifying complexity and aligning with IT standards to boost performance and resilience. Our core principles – application-centricity, seamless IT/OT integration, and asset-centricity – deliver superior efficiency, resilience, and reduced total cost of ownership.”

Elaborating more on this initiative, Rajat Abbi, Vice President- Marketing, Schneider Electric India, states, “Through this initiative, we are demonstrating our strong commitment and responsibility towards liberalising industrial automation. Through the Open Automation movement, Schneider Electric is leading the charge in empowering Industries to become bolder through flexible and future-ready operations. We will be using all relevant marketing touchpoints to take this campaign to the market and demonstrate the true benefits of switching to the open, software defined automation.”

Schneider Electric is working closely with stakeholders from key sectors for this movement including Water & Wastewater, Consumer Packaged Goods, Food & Beverage, Life Sciences and many more. Leading industry players have joined the movement already, reflecting strong momentum across the Industrial landscape. The Open, Software defined Automation Movement will also play a key role in supporting small and medium enterprises by offering them access to flexible, cost-effective technologies that were once out of reach due to vendor lock-ins and high infrastructure costs.