Every year, developers, integrators, and end users who work with Ignition gather as a community for a first look at where the platform is headed. This fall, Premier Automation's Adrienne Harvey (Automation Specialist, Programming) was invited to speak at the Ignition Community Conference (ICC). Her experiences at the conference highlight the value of having Premier engineers in the room at events like these, and how what they learn can enhance the systems you run every day.
The ICC is the largest annual gathering of people who work with Ignition, Inductive Automation's industrial software platform. It brings together integrators like Premier, in-house developers who support a single manufacturer, and of course the Inductive Automation team. Attendees traveled from around the world for this event. This was Adrienne's third ICC and her second as a speaker. Her session demonstrated how to build a map-based application with Ignition Maker Edition for a neighborhood litter tracking and cleanup effort. Her application also leveraged IIoT technologies like Node-RED, MQTT, and Sparkplug (along with GPS data from Meshtastic nodes), and illustrated how far the platform can reach beyond typical use cases such as plant-floor HMI screens.
Many of Premier's customers already run Ignition or request it for new projects. Premier most often deploys it as a SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system and uses it to develop custom HMIs. Premier's engineers connect Ignition to your PLCs and databases, then design and build the screens your operators need to run the process. While many larger projects, such as SCADA and manufacturing execution systems (MES), will use the full, standard edition of Ignition, Premier can also develop with Ignition Edge when a customer only needs to control a single machine or short production line.
Ignition's flexibility can also create a challenge. Adrienne notes that most tasks in Ignition can be handled in a number of ways, and she can often tell whether a developer comes from a PLC or traditional software development background just from how they organize a project. For a team that works across multiple PLC platforms and supports systems for their full lifecycle, Premier finds that consistent development practices can make it easier to hand off a project or return to a system years later and know exactly where everything lives.
A first look at Ignition's AI direction. The technical keynote introduced two optional modules (Catalyst Core and Catalyst Agent) coming in the next version of Ignition that bring large language models (LLMs) into the platform. Catalyst Core works inside the Ignition Designer and lets developers use the LLM of their choice with awareness of both Ignition and the specific project. Adrienne expects this approach will save time by reducing off-target suggestions, which can lead to accidental technical debt. Customers who choose to use the Catalyst Agent module can give their operators or engineers a chatbot interface limited to only the tools they approve.
Practical frameworks for better projects. Adrienne also attended two workshops: Architecting Ignition to be Scalable Now and Into the Future, and Best Practices for Next-Level Ignition Builds. When Premier modernizes a single line and the customer later wants Ignition across the facility, a project built with growth in mind can make that expansion faster and cleaner. She is already sharing these practices with the Automation team.
Connections to proven solutions. Another big reason to attend ICC is to connect with Inductive Automation's verified partners. Many of these partners have already built tools that you may want integrated into your projects. Those relationships, along with the community-built and Inductive Automation-vetted Ignition Exchange, let Premier bring you tested, supported solutions even faster.
Confirmation of what's already working. Adrienne also saw that Premier is already practicing validated development principles, including adopting new technology responsibly and designing with the operator in mind. Plant floors are loud, distracting, and sometimes hazardous, so the best screens put the right information in front of the operator when it's needed and make the safe choice the easy one. Adrienne believes an operator screen should be built around the task at hand, with the controls an operator needs readily available instead of competing with visual extras.
Adrienne describes the Ignition community as one of the most welcoming, collaborative groups in industrial automation. Companies that look like competitors from the outside regularly share ideas and tools. The ICC has many fun traditions (including an unofficial orange dog mascot named Iggy, the annual Build-a-thon, the Inductive Automation band known as the Department of Funk, and the popular women's breakfast). Along with valuable in-person time with the Inductive Automation team, she came home with new knowledge and stronger relationships that will help Premier stay ahead of what's next.
Catalyst Core and Catalyst Agent will give Ignition users new choices about where AI fits on the plant floor. If you want to know whether either module makes sense for your system, or you're planning a new Ignition project, talk with Premier's Automation team [LINK] about what you're running today and where you want it to go.