Automate 2025 Highlights: Schneider Shows a Schmooooth Experience

At Automate 2025 in Detroit, Schneider Electric showed off a comprehensive suite of industrial automation solutions, spanning from the field and control-level devices, all the way up to network and IT-level enterprise hardware and software. The bright green booth, illuminated with the term “Schmooooth” for all attendees to see, highlighted how a single, unified architecture of hardware and software from a single, trustworthy manufacturer can simplify the entire design and commissioning process for large automation projects.

Schneider and the Schmoooooth user experience.

Digital Thread: The EcoStruxure Platform

A key focus as the tour progressed through the booth was the EcoStruxure Automation Expert platform, built to act as the central nervous system for a modern factory.

The first live demonstration simulated liquid pumping, much like a brewery setup, illustrating how EcoStruxure Automation Expert connects various automation layers from a wireless RTU to a user-friendly HMI, as well as the valves and sensors attached to the system.

A wireless gateway into data analytics and pump control.

Schneider’s theme through the booth strongly emphasized the integration of different technology levels. At the foundational level, these RTUs play a crucial role in acquiring and transmitting data from remote assets and helping to control individual processes.

PLCs with Motion Control

Moving up the control system hierarchy, PLCs like the Modicon M-Series provide real-time control over individual machines and processes. In fact, did you know that the Modicon series is the direct descendant of the very first PLC ever created?

Servo drives and motion controllers.

At the next demonstration, Schneider presented its next-generation motion system, featuring Lexium servo motion controllers. This demonstration showed conveyor motion, but with highly efficient individual movers around a circular track in a bottle-filling application. Combined with the EcoStruxure software, all of these motion devices can provide data that serves to evaluate and optimize the entire plant process.

The Highest Level of Plant Monitoring

To achieve plant-wide monitoring and control, Schneider leverages the EcoStruxure Plant architecture, integrating the distinct layers of operational technology and information technology. We have heard so much about this integration in recent years, but this is still often resolved by creating networks of various vendor equipment; OT equipment (PLCs and I/O devices, etc) from one company, but employing servers and IT software from a different source.

Automated conveyance using the Lexium multicarrier system.

The incorporation of IT equipment, including industrial PCs and servers, is integral to Schneider’s approach, since the company’s background includes expertise in both areas. These IT components provide the necessary computational power and data storage for running advanced analytics, visualization tools, and control software at the plant level, which traditional device-level controllers cannot achieve. The seamless integration of IT and OT technologies, facilitated by EcoStruxure, can bring in data from the shop floor, manage and store it safely, then either facilitate the algorithms or work with a cloud system to analyze the data to lead to a more effective future.

From Floor to Cloud

Schneider's booth at Automate underscored the drive to provide true end-to-end industrial automation solutions. It can be hard to find a trustworthy company capable of providing everything from shop floor to cloud, but as Schneider says, they aim to make the experience as Schmooooth as possible.

All images used courtesy of the author