The state of the industrial sector

Compared to industries such as semiconductor manufacturing or automotive, the digital transformation of industrial processes is lagging in process industries (for example, oil, gas, and chemicals).

Process industry investment decision periods tend to be much longer as the potential risk associated with changing a production system in operation is always considered to be too high due to the interdependencies of processes. Changes can have an impact on a complex process system and lead, for example, to serious incidents, such as an explosion at an oil plant or chemical plant. In addition, no plant operator would want to alter a running system unless the anticipated benefits outweigh the risks substantially.

In January 2020, Honeywell CEO Darius Adamczyk discussed the software strategy of the company, which included the transformation to becoming a much more digitally modern company. This strategy consists of three components: data integrity, consistency...