I’ve written a lot about the ways in which traditional product makers are being transformed by digital. In “From Grease To Code: Industrial Giants Must Bet Their Futures On Software,” for example, I explored ways in which industrial firms are having to reinvent themselves as they augment a hundred years of experience making physical products with newer skills around software and services.

Man studying a virtual jet engine through VR glasses

Behind the strategic shifts and the messaging shifts, there are some shifts in technology that also need to be understood. I’ll be looking at these over the next few months, ending up with a pair of new Forrester Tech Tide™ reports: my first experience with this particular Forrester report format. Readers with an interest in the topics I spend time thinking about may also be interested in recent Tech Tides from some of my colleagues: Michele Pelino just published “The Forrester Tech Tide™: Internet Of Things, Q3 2019,” and J. P. Gownder and Brandon Purcell’s “The Forrester Tech Tide™: AI, Automation, And Robotics For Customers And Employees, Q2 2019” also deserves your attention.

The Tech Tide process is described here. One important piece of the process is a survey, which we’re just about ready to launch. This will go out to a broad range of stakeholders: If you think you should be included in that invitation, please do get in touch with me. The survey includes a range of categories around things such as internet of things, robots, augmented reality, and industrial control systems. Don’t worry: You only answer questions on the technologies you have experience with.

Instead of just doing one Tech Tide, we’re doing two. They’ll share a single survey, and both will be published later this year. The first is currently called “The Forrester Tech Tide™: Smart Manufacturing, Q4 2019” and will present an analysis of the maturity and business value of key technology categories relevant to the smart manufacturing space. It is specifically concerned with the industrial processes and operations sometimes referred to as Industry 4.0 and is the first of two closely linked reports. The second is currently called “The Forrester Tech Tide™: Smart Connected Products, Q4 2019” and will present an analysis of the maturity and business value of key technology categories relevant to the smart manufacturing space. It is specifically concerned with the design, manufacture, and support of connected products and is the second of two closely linked reports.

I’m interested to see how they turn out and hope that if these topics are close to your area of expertise, you’ll volunteer to share some of your insights with us.

(Image source: iStock)