Industrial automation manufacturers now expect far more than solid hardware and basic functionality before approving sourced products. Where performance specs once drove decisions, the focus has shifted to how quickly a solution can be fully validated for deployment. Modern automation platforms combine embedded software, network connectivity, and cybersecurity with interoperability across legacy systems, disciplined manufacturing test strategies, and long-term lifecycle support. To win approval, products must prove they can connect securely, integrate smoothly into existing environments, remain supportable for years, and deliver consistent, real-world reliability—not just perform well on the bench.

For industrial control/automation manufacturing OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) that own the product roadmap, brand and customer outcomes, the strategic question has shifted: How do we assemble the fastest, most reliable delivery model for this full-stack, compliance-driven market?

The answer increasingly points to ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) partners that deliver architecture, engineering, industrialization, manufacturing and lifecycle support as a single integrated engine. This partnership leads to a fully holistic approach from VOC (voice of customer) to planning ahead for future variations.

The Full-Stack Imperative

Modern automation and control industrial products map into multiple interconnected layers where competitive wins and failures happen at the seams between layers:

• Field Layer: Sensors, I/O, actuators, safety devices
• Field Layer: Sensors, I/O, actuators, safety devices
• Control Layer: PLCs, motion/drives, safety controllers
• Network Layer: Industrial Ethernet, gateways, time synchronization
• Edge/IIoT Layer: Data acquisition, protocol translation, edge computing
• Lifecycle Layer: Remote service, patching, sustaining, obsolescence management

Unlike OEMs which typically do not have internal expertise in all these layers, an ODM partner can provide the necessary technology for a full-stack solution. The ODM can apply its resources to executing an integrated, coordinated project, reducing the risk of missing essential interconnections at the seams between layers.

Smart Automation Solutions as a Full-Stack Product

The development of automated and industrial controls extends well beyond electronics and mechanics, requiring tightly integrated full-stack systems engineered, validated and sustained as a unified whole.

Smart automation solutions demand complete system integration of full-stack products:

• Embedded systems, firmware and diagnostics
• Connectivity, identity and provisioning
• Update mechanisms and release discipline
• Cybersecurity by design
• Interoperability and conformance testing
• Manufacturing test automation and traceability
• Sustaining engineering over long lifecycles

Late-stage surprises rarely stem from bad ideas. They emerge from interface failures: incorrect timing assumptions, EMC impacts on communications, security controls that disrupt workflows and manufacturing tests that miss field failures.

With existing development projects in process, OEMs cannot simultaneously allocate a full set of resources to a new full-stack product. ODMs have that capability, and, as a result, avoid interface failures.

Operational Technology (OT) Cybersecurity: An Unavoidable Reality

Industrial automation and control products must incorporate OT cybersecurity frameworks. In addition, regulatory requirements impact design. The ISA/IEC 62443 standards address security for industrial automation across the product lifecycle. IEC 62443-4-1 defines secure development lifecycle requirements covering security design, implementation practices, verification procedures, patch management and end-of-life handling.

As automation systems grow increasingly interconnected through communication networks, such as DeviceNet, Profibus and industrial Ethernet, cybersecurity becomes critical infrastructure. Network-connected devices pose potential attack vectors and require security controls that preserve both functionality and serviceability.

Industrial controls and automation OEMs often lack cybersecurity expertise in their product design departments. Cybersecurity technology resides in the IT department, which is focused on network protection, not embedded product protection. Full-service ODMs integrate cybersecurity resources into their product development teams, ensuring products that are cyber-secure and compliant with applicable standards without extending project timelines.

Interoperability and Lifecycle Support: Essential Requirements

Most plants operate in brownfield environments. Products must coexist with legacy protocols, mixed vendors, uptime constraints and segmented networks. Interoperability has evolved from “nice-to-have” to “must-prove” for market success. ODMs with deep protocol expertise and conformance testing capabilities help OEMs demonstrate interoperability through repeatable validation approaches rather than post-deployment troubleshooting.

Industrial controls products often operate for 10-20 years in the field. Buyers increasingly evaluate:

• Controlled release processes ensuring stability
• Vulnerability response and patch cadence
• Component lifecycle planning and obsolescence strategy
• Consistent field diagnostics and service workflows

ODMs create parallel tracks rather than sequential workflows

Why ODMs Excel in Smart Automation Solutions

The compelling reason to partner with an ODM extends beyond contract manufacturing. Strong ODMs execute entire programs as coordinated systems, delivering architecture, engineering, validation, industrialization and lifecycle support services.

Speed Redefined as Time-to-Validation

In industrial controls, speed is no longer defined by how fast a prototype is built, but by how quickly a product can be validated, secured, integrated and sustained in real-world environments.

• Delivering validated architecture
• Stable firmware under actual conditions
• Cybersecurity built into the development lifecycle
• Interoperability testing with repeatable conformance approaches
• Manufacturing test coverage catching defects before field deployment
• Complete documentation and controlled change management

Capable ODMs create parallel tracks rather than sequential workflows, thereby shrinking critical paths and delivering value to engineering managers, executives and product managers. Fewer late surprises and redesign loops due to early integration of test strategy, EMC pre-work, and interface constraints benefit engineering managers. Executives have minimized schedule slips and expensive field escalations. Product managers can reuse platform designs to accelerate and simplify portfolio expansion.

Owning the Seams Reduces Risk

Because many failures occur at interfaces, ODMs responsible for system integration reduce handoff risks. ODMs avoid potential problems with firmware/hardware timing alignment, EMC/EMI impacts on communication stability, security controls that preserve serviceability and manufacturing testing focused on failure modes.

Manufacturing Reality Enters Design Early

ODMs with mature industrialization capabilities bring Design for Manufacturing (DFM), Design for Test (DFT) and automated test strategy into early design phases. These techniques reduce “design-it-twice” churn and accelerate the path to production.

Security-by-Design with Evidence

OT cybersecurity increasingly demands demonstrating mature practices. Anchoring security to frameworks like IEC 62443-4-1 and providing artifacts reduces risk and meets buyer expectations for proven security maturity.

Where ODMs Provide Maximum Value in Smart Automation Solutions

ODMs provide a full set of services that would burden an OEM by requiring additional expertise, engineering resources and training.

ODM’s offer:

• Multi-layer integration: Coordinating field/control/network/edge layers
• Cybersecurity and lifecycle maturity: Meeting compliance requirements through demonstrated practices
• Interoperability: Delivering conformance proof through repeatable testing
• Manufacturing test strategy: Creating differentiating traceability and quality systems
• Long lifecycle sustainment: Managing obsolescence planning across decades

Choosing the Right ODM Partner

Choosing the right ODM requires more than vendor comparison—it demands rigorous evaluation of proven capabilities across security, interoperability, manufacturability and long-term lifecycle execution.

Treat ODM selection as an evidence-based audit and anchor evaluation around:

• Secure product development lifecycle maturity (IEC 62443-4-1 aligned)
• Vulnerability response and patch processes
• Interoperability strategy and conformance testing capabilities
• Manufacturing test coverage and traceability
• Lifecycle sustaining model and obsolescence management
• Program governance: stage gates, responsible-accountable-consulted-informed (RACI) framework, change control, and escalation paths

Engineering managers need evidence of secure system development, verification plans, test coverage and release workflows. Product managers seek platform reuse and roadmap acceleration. Executives demand risk control through governance, decision rights and change management. The right ODM provides these services.

DENSO WAVE Performance: Examples in Smart Automation Solutions

The following examples demonstrate how DENSO WAVE used its expertise to help two OEMs. DENSO WAVE designed a product platform for one company and, building on the platform, developed a long-term relationship with the company. For the second company, DENSO WAVE accelerated the development cycle by incorporating automotive technology expertise.

Cost-Effective PLC Product Line Expansion

An industrial controls manufacturer needed a low-cost PLC product line that integrated seamlessly with its existing high-performance products. DENSO WAVE developed a high-reliability product line that met aggressive cost targets while maintaining integration requirements. The market responded dramatically. Sales grew significantly as customers deployed the PLCs in applications the OEM had not initially envisioned. This partnership has now spanned 40 years, with DENSO WAVE continuously developing new products for the company.

Compressed Development Cycle

A water heater manufacturer needed a moisture sensor but lacked internal expertise. Their engineering team projected an 8-12 month development timeline. DENSO WAVE brought automotive moisture sensor experience to the challenge and compressed the development cycle to just 10 weeks. This example demonstrates that custom development need not require lengthy timelines when an ODM applies its cross-industry expertise and proven development processes.

The Competitive Advantage Shift

Industrial control and automation technology are entering a phase where competitive advantage comes from validated, secure, interoperable, lifecycle-ready platforms — not just good hardware. As smart manufacturing investment rises and cybersecurity and interoperability standards continue to evolve, OEMs increasingly need ODMs to compress time-to-validation and reduce program risk while allowing internal teams to focus on differentiators that truly belong in-house.

The DENSO WAVE Advantage

DENSO WAVE combines automotive-grade quality systems, IEC 62443-4-1 certified secure development practices, comprehensive cybersecurity infrastructure and deep industrial communications expertise to deliver full-stack ODM capabilities. Through its $50 billion parent organization, DENSO WAVE provides supply chain resilience, advanced semiconductor design capabilities, scalable quality manufacturing and long-term lifecycle support spanning 40-50 year customer relationships. This integrated approach enables OEMs to achieve what isolated internal development cannot: dramatically compressed time-to-validation, demonstrated security maturity, proven interoperability and scalable production — all while maintaining focus on core differentiators and market leadership.

Contact DENSO WAVE today to explore how a strategic ODM partnership accelerates your smart automation product development while enhancing security, quality and market success.

For decades, the PLC (programmable logic controller) has been the backbone of industrial automation. It is predictable, deterministic and engineered for harsh environments and long lifecycles. Those requirements are not changing.

Here is what is changing — everything around the PLC.

Plants now expect real-time visibility, unified data models, cybersecurity controls and AI-assisted decision-making — without sacrificing uptime. The result is a new automation stack: PLCs still do what they do best, but they increasingly share the stage with industrial PCs, edge gateways, modern human-machine interfaces (HMIs), and cloud services. This is why many manufacturers are talking less about “upgrading PLCs” and more about evolving toward “controller + compute” architectures and edge AI-enabled systems.

Industrial automation architectures are undergoing a structural shift. Here are the major trends reshaping the automation market — and the practical ways original design manufacturers (ODMs) help engineering leaders at original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) keep pace without derailing product roadmaps.

Trend 1: PLC to “Controller + Compute” Architectures

The classic model — PLC controls the line, SCADA visualizes, historians store — still exists. However, it is no longer sufficient when OEMs need:

• High-frequency data preprocessing near machines
• Multiple protocols and vendor ecosystems to coexist
• AI inference close to sensors and cameras
• Modern software deployment patterns (containers, remote updates, fleet management)

That is why hybrid architectures have evolved: PLCs handle hard real-time control and safety logic, while industrial PCs or edge devices manage higher-level computation, including analytics, vision, orchestration and data normalization. Many organizations treat edge nodes as the “application layer” sitting next to deterministic control.

What changes are for the engineering teams:
OEMs must manage software lifecycles as products, employing versioning, patching and remote diagnostics. Validation extends beyond proving control logic to encompass the interaction among control, data, and computing operations.

Where this goes wrong:
Teams bolt on edge compute late, then discover networking, timing and security assumptions were not designed into the system. That leads to rework and delayed launches.

Trend 2: Edge AI Shifts from Pilot to Production

Edge AI is first appearing where ROI is easy to justify: machine vision quality inspection, anomaly detection, predictive maintenance and operator-assist systems. Edge inference reduces latency, bandwidth costs and cloud dependence while keeping sensitive production data closer to the process.

But the “AI model” is rarely the hardest part. The hard part is operationalizing it: reliably collecting and labeling data, handling drift, monitoring model performance and updating models without disrupting validated control behavior.

Essentially, edge AI is a systems engineering problem as much as a data science problem.

Trend 3: Interoperability and Semantic Data Models Get Serious

Manufacturers no longer want custom integrations. Engineering teams want to avoid building fragile middleware layers that become technical debt.

Open Platform Communications Unified Architecture (OPC UA), an interoperability standard for secure, reliable data exchange in industrial automation, has long been a cornerstone of interoperability. What is new is the desire to bring interoperability closer to the field level — where timing, determinism and multi-vendor control-to-control communication matter.

That’s where OPC UA FX (Field eXchange) enters the story. The OPC Foundation has been advancing OPC UA FX specifications and releases, including components covering connecting devices, networking, offline engineering, and profiles. Major automation players describe OPC UA FX as a way to deliver secure, deterministic, interoperable communication—often leveraging time-sensitive networking (TSN) concepts to enable low-latency behavior.

Another advancement in this field is the Open Resource Interface for Network (ORIN) software development kit, developed by DENSO WAVE. This software program enables computers to connect to factory automation devices (robots, PLCs, and NC machine tools from various manufacturers) via common protocols and supports the simple development of higher-level application software using general-purpose languages such as C#, C++, VBA, Java, and Python.

Why it matters:
Interoperability is not just “getting the data out.” It is about consistent data models, predictable communication, and reducing the integration tax that slows every deployment and every product iteration.

Trend 4: Cybersecurity Becomes a Product Requirement

In industrial automation, cybersecurity is no longer a “customer IT issue.” Cybersecurity has become a requirement in RFQs, audits, and vendor qualification. The ISA/IEC 62443 standards are widely used to define requirements and processes for securing industrial automation and control systems.

At the same time, broader security approaches, like Zero Trust verification and monitoring concepts, are influencing how organizations think about segmentation, identity, and access control across operational technology (OT) environments. NIST has published detailed guidance on implementing Zero Trust architectures, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has published guidance on micro-segmentation as a practical control. Micro-segmentation divides a network into small, isolated zones for greater system security.

Translation for automation product teams:
Threat modeling and secure-by-design practices must start during architecture design — not after commissioning. Development teams must consider: documentation, testing artifacts, secure development practices, and supply chain controls.

Trend 5: IIoT and “Edge + Cloud” Becomes Workload Placement

Most manufacturers want the right workload in the right place: control stays local, time-sensitive analytics stay at the edge, and fleet-wide learning and optimization can live in the cloud. Edge and cloud are complementary tools, chosen based on latency, reliability, and operational constraints.

Manufacturers that rely entirely on the cloud limit the flexibility and performance of their systems.

Trend 6: Workforce Constraints Accelerate Strategic Partnerships

Even highly capable engineering organizations face a talent squeeze – especially for cross-disciplinary roles that blend controls, embedded software, networking, and security. Deloitte and The Manufacturing Institute have highlighted large projected workforce needs and persistent gaps in manufacturing skills.

This doesn’t mean “outsource everything.” It means organizations need to be increasingly selective about what must stay in-house versus what can be accelerated through partners—especially when timelines are tight and the ODM has access to differentiated technology.

How ODMs Help You Keep Up on Custom Automation Solutions

A strong ODM partner doesn’t just “build to print.” In modern automation, ODMs help most when they bring a platform approach, integration discipline, and manufacturing expertise to a development project. ODMs can offer the following:

1. Platformizing the architecture
   ODMs can help define a reusable reference design for the controller + compute split (PLC + industrial PC/edge), incorporating modular I/O and gateway approaches, and standardized telemetry and data model strategy. The payoff is simple: faster next-generation products and fewer surprise integration issues.
2. Building interoperability and multi-vendor test coverage
   If an OEM’s roadmap touches OPC UA or OPC UA FX-style interoperability, it needs the following for regression testing: consistent information models, rigorous integration testing across vendor stacks, and repeatable test harnesses. This is unglamorous work, but it’s where timelines live or die.
3. Operationalizing Edge AI without destabilizing validated control
   ODMs can contribute the “glue” work: data ingestion pipelines at the edge, model packaging/deployment patterns, monitoring hooks, field update strategy, compute selection, and thermal/mechanical design for industrial environments. This is how edge AI moves from “demo” to “product.”
4. Engineering cybersecurity as part of the product lifecycle
   IEC 62443-aligned approaches emphasize lifecycle processes, not just point solutions. ODMs that have security engineering discipline can help with secure boot, signing, credential handling, update mechanisms, segmentation strategy, and documentation that customers increasingly demand.
5. Making products manufacturable, sourceable and supportable at scale
   Many automation innovations fail at scale because components go end-of-life (EOL), supply chains break, manufacturing test coverage is weak, or field service procedures are inadequately planned. ODMs live in this world. They can harden prototypes into real products with design for manufacturing (DFM) and design for test (DFT), supplier qualification, and lifecycle management.

Where ODMs Should Not Replace OEMs

A quick reality check: ODMs accelerate execution and provide custom automation solutions — but they should not own the OEM’s customer problem definition and product positioning, the business tradeoffs that shape requirements, or the core differentiated technology. Also, OEMs must be responsible for final safety/regulatory accountability. An ODM can provide support to the OEM, but ownership must remain internal.

The DENSO WAVE Advantage in Custom Automation Solutions

PLCs remain essential — but the competitive advantage is shifting to OEMs that combine deterministic control with edge compute, standardized interoperability, and production-ready AI — securely and at scale.

ODMs help when they are more than manufacturers: when they bring systems engineering, platform reuse, compliance discipline, differentiated technology, and supply-chain execution that keeps an OEM’s roadmap moving even as the automation stack evolves.

DENSO WAVE has been working with an OEM that makes PLCs for over 40 years and has been helping the OEM evolve its automation stack for PLCs over numerous product generations. DENSO WAVE leverages automotive technology expertise, Toyota Quality Management processes, and the power of a $50 billion supply chain to provide OEMs with reliable, rugged, and resilient-sourced products.

Contact DENSO WAVE today to assist you in keeping up with the trends in PLCs and other industrial automation products.