Recently, there's been a lot of discussion around digital disruption in various industries and in particular, how manufacturers need to jumpstart their digital transformation and adopt digital business models.  We think the future of manufacturing in a connected world requires a roadmap as you go thru the journey of becoming a digital manufacturer. Attending educational conferences such as the upcoming Automation Fair, Rockwell Automation's largest user conference which is coming up from November 17-18 in Chicago, can help tremendously.

As my colleague Chet Namboodri outlines in his blog, "Countdown to Automation Fair: Spotlight on Digital Manufacturing", Cisco will have a presence inBooth 1045 at#AutoFair15 and will demonstrate solutions and products that can help enable digital transformation. I will be presenting on'The Future of Manufacturing in a Connected World: How to Get There Today'(T85) where I will describe why the integration of control and information on the manufacturing floor will be essential for manufacturersto remain competitive. In this session, we will also cover how our joint partnership with Rockwell Automation means we are delivering products, solutions and services that use our industry-leading best practices for networking and convergence for organizational efficiency. Expect to hear more about use cases and solution sets for the plant of the future, automation infrastructure, security and compliance, mobility, video and collaboration, industrial computing and cloud, remote expertise and remote services, and energy management.

In addition, I invite you to join us at these educational sessions led by Cisco experts to learn more about solutions.

• Cisco Solutions for the Converged Plantwide Ethernet Reference Architectures (TS06):Cisco's own Scott Friberg and Rockwell Automation's Gregory Wilcox will review the Cisco and Rockwell Automation CPwE (converged plant-wide Ethernet) architectures.

• Trends in Enterprise Networks(T23):Scott Friberg will describe how the trends in Enterprise networking may soon be impact your EtherNet/IP networks. This will be a general overview of various technologies such as: transition from IPv4 to IPv6, flexibility gained from Software-defined Networking (SDN), TrustSec secure network access, BYOD, and cloud computing (public, private, fog).

• Wireless Design Considerations for Industrial Applications(T26):Cisco presenter Arun Siddeswaran will discuss how Industrial Automation and Control System (IACS) applications increasingly use wireless LANs that require reliable data transmission with low levels of latency and jitter. Deploying a wireless network requires thoughtful planning and design, as well as periodic monitoring to meet expectations for bandwidth, throughput, reliability and security.

• F&B Forum: IoT and Plant Floor Virtualization -Emerging Technologies Accelerating Lean Manufacturing:For those in the Food and Beverage space, Randal Kenworthy of Cisco will discuss how the Internet of Things (IoT) and plant-floor virtualization are rapidly adopting technologies that are profoundly benefiting manufacturing.   These technologies provide a fundamentally new infrastructure that enables plant managers more flexibility, modularity and speed to change operations.

Get more details on all these sessions and Cisco's presence at Automation Fair here.   You can also schedule a booth tour and connect with Cisco subject matter experts on important topics such as IoT, security, Converged Plantwide Ethernet (CPwE) and Connected Machines. Follow us at#CiscoMfg to follow our presence at the show and the social media contests we will be running. I look forward to seeing you at Automation Fair in Chicago! Thanks for reading.