Technology company Siemens and ServiceNow, a specialist in digital workflows, announced Nov. 13 that they will partner closely by using Siemens’ cloud-based software service, which makes OT devices on a shop floor transparent, and connecting it with the NowPlatform from ServiceNow for clients.
The two companies will showcase this partnership this week at SPS 2023 Nov. 14-16 in Nuremberg, Germany.
Siemens’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution enables the recognition, identification, and management of all OT devices to simplify and automate their processes. It makes the status of all OT devices across the network completely transparent, regardless of manufacturer or device type, using one tool. This functionality extends the NowPlatform, which already provides management of IT assets. With this expansion, Siemens and ServiceNow are addressing the need of their shared customers to increase transparency across entire shop floors.
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As a result, incidents that could disrupt the production process in industrial plants can be prevented. The tool also allows for planning service tasks, identifying potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and dispatching service personnel without additional manual or time costs. OT assets can now be managed with the same flexibility and interoperability as IT assets.
“OT management is 10 years behind IT management. ServiceNow has already mastered IT asset management—and this partnership means opening our ecosystem and leaving behind the silos,” Dirk Didascalou, CTO of digital industries at Siemens, said in a joint statement from the two companies. “By combining the IT expertise of ServiceNow with our OT knowledge, we’re truly putting IT and OT convergence into practice and enabling speed and scale for our shared customers.”
Added Karel van der Poel, senior VP of products at ServiceNow: “The digital transformation of manufacturing processes is happening at a rapid pace. We are witnessing the fusion of the physical and digital worlds, and IT and OT convergence is an underlying enabler. That digital transformation brings new opportunities for new business models and can help increase productivity significantly. Siemens and ServiceNow are committed to helping customers realize these benefits.”
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With this partnership, Siemens and ServiceNow say they are strengthening an industrial ecosystem to accelerate the digital transformation of industrial customers.
The scalable, open, and secure cloud service extends the Siemens Xcelerator digital business platform and Industrial Operations X interoperable portfolio. This growing portfolio covers production engineering, execution, and optimization. With Industrial Operations X, Siemens integrates IT and software capabilities in the world of automation to make production processes more flexible, autonomous, and better tailored to clients’ needs, the joint statement said.
