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Protocol Conversion Gives Factories An Edge To Stay Ahead Business leaders understand that the thoughtful integration of technology is key to acquiring and maintaining a competitive advantage. Only by staying ahead of the technology curve can a company stay in business. Accomplishing this in the Digital Era means leveraging automation solutions that decrease costs, enhance…

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March 20, 2018, 4:38 PM UTC

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Protocol Conversion Gives Factories An Edge To Stay Ahead

Business leaders understand that the thoughtful integration of technology is key to acquiring and maintaining a competitive advantage. Only by staying ahead of the technology curve can a company stay in business. Accomplishing this in the Digital Era means leveraging automation solutions that decrease costs, enhance efficiencies, and maximize productivity. Manufacturers that wish to remain competitive must adopt digitization and automation across their operations, or risk being outperformed by rivals who invest in the technology.

A 2017 PriceWaterhouseCoopers survey of industrial companies titled Digital Factories 2020: Shaping the Future of Manufacturing found that 6% of polled companies had already fully digitized their factories, 85% responded that they use digitization widely, and 41% are using some standalone digital solution at their facility. Utilizing innovative technologies is a must for industrial organizations, but integrating these solutions can represent a significant capital investment. Even more challenging is the brisk evolution of technology which threatens to render solutions (equipment, operations, systems, etc.) outdated after they’re implemented, limiting ROI. How does a company enhance operations and keep pace with accelerating technological change in a way that is cost-effective? The solution: protocol conversion.

Protocol conversion involves connecting existing assets so that they communicate with one another, allowing a company to get the most out of their legacy equipment. While older machines may not have been designed for interoperability, protocol conversion can unite the assets and upgrade both their controls and motion to improve their manufacturing and management capabilities. Protocol conversion enables industrial machines to aggregate data in order to drive optimization. The data that is compiled can be monitored and analyzed to generate actionable insights, predict maintenance interventions, and minimize equipment downtime. By connecting legacy equipment for interoperability and utilizing Industrial Internet of Things-enabled technologies to upgrade or retrofit factory devices, companies can avoid having to rip and replace assets, promoting a fast ROI.

With over forty years of experience, Red Lion Controls is a global leader in communication, monitoring and control for industrial automation and networking. We provide proven resources for optimizing existing factory infrastructure through automation and M2M technology. Our solutions for protocol conversion can improve industrial operations using a balanced and flexible approach that is cost-effective. We facilitate a seamless transition from a traditional factory to an advanced network infrastructure, all with minimal downtime. Visit us here to learn more about our industrial automation products that can help your organization stay competitive.

Visit us at www.redlion.net to learn more

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Packaging robots can beat labor long term on cost, PMMI argues

PMMI's Tom Egan wrote in Processing Magazine that adding packaging automation and robotics can now be justified as more cost-effective over the long term than the high cost of labor in food, beverage and CPG plants. Separately, Packaging World describes AI-enabled AMRs from ABB and Agilox that automate material movement between packaging stations. The remaining gap is adoption among smaller manufacturers.

01Two reference points for infrastructure-light material movement: ABB's Flexley Mover P603 carries 1,500 kg with sub-centimeter positioning and no floor markers, and Agilox's OFL lifts 800 kg pallets on peer-to-peer fleet software with no central traffic controller, per Packaging World.
02The open ground is small and mid-sized manufacturers: MTC's Mike Wilson counts tens of thousands of UK SMEs with no robotic automation at all and expects cobots to take most of that growth.
03A robotics business case should include procurement, not only line labor: a June 2026 China Journal of Accounting Research study found heavy robot adopters spread buying across more suppliers, gaining resilience but losing inventory efficiency and adding transaction costs.

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Xtellio brings telematics to jobsite tools and heaters

Xtellio launched a two-tier telematics platform in March 2026: 32 battery-powered Xense sensors for small tools and wired Pro-Xentral devices for excavators, light towers and heaters. The company claims a 10-year battery life. Data is delivered through open APIs, which Xtellio frames as customer ownership of the data, aimed at rental and construction fleets where small assets have gone largely untracked.

01Xtellio’s stated 10-year battery life for its Bluetooth Xense sensors is the key spec to test in the field; if it holds up, tagging hundreds of tools can look like a one-time install rather than a recurring battery-maintenance program.
02For rental houses and contractors running mixed fleets, the sharper question is no longer which machines have telematics but whether the heaters, light towers and hand tools do, and whether that data lands in the same system.
03Open APIs and “data liberation” are part of Xtellio’s pitch, and the coverage frames that as a prompt for RFP questions: what the APIs expose, where data can be sent, and whether customers can take historical data if they switch providers.

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Senate bill would double smart water grants to $50 million a year

S. 2388, the Water Infrastructure Modernization Act of 2025, would double an EPA water tech pilot to $50 million a year through 2028. Grants would cover design, construction, training and operations for leak detection, advanced metering and AI analytics, WaterWorld reported. Planning and maintenance stay on the utility's tab.

01Under S. 2388 as WaterWorld describes it, feasibility studies are not grant-eligible, so a utility would have to pay to build the case for a smart water project before applying for help building the project itself.
02The bill's eligible list puts advanced digital design and construction management tools in the same bucket as meters and sensors, which would give a utility's capital delivery team a claim on the same grant as its field operations group.
03The existing pilot program's authorization runs through 2026, per WaterWorld; the bill would extend it to 2028, and its last reported status was 'introduced' as of Aug. 12, 2025.

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