Sensible Business, a number one analysis and media agency masking a big selection of business sectors, simply launched its 2026 Sensible Business Industrial Transformation Awards (ITAs), with Cisco serving as a proud sponsor. The 9 honorees—Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP), Rivian, The Walt Disney Firm, Alabama DOT, Arkansas DOT, Texas DOT, Duke Vitality, Nationwide Grid, and NorthWestern Vitality —span manufacturing, transportation, and utilities. Their award-winning tasks fluctuate from reversible visitors lanes to grid modernization to amusement-park monitoring. However right here’s what caught our consideration: beneath these floor variations are three shared patterns.
At Rivian, the IT, OT, and manufacturing engineering groups constructed standardized community architectures that included beforehand remoted operational networks. Now the electrical automobile producer has end-to-end visibility throughout manufacturing tools, automation programs, and analytics platforms, contributing to 99.99% community uptime and 0 unplanned community downtime. “The community—as soon as our weakest hyperlink—is now probably the most dependable and trusted part of Rivian’s manufacturing ecosystem,” mentioned Rohini Mor, Rivian’s senior supervisor of community engineering.
Reliability additionally rose at Duke Vitality. After mergers left the corporate with disjointed networks, the utility’s telecom staff labored with the transmission, distribution, and gasoline groups emigrate grid automation management and communications throughout amenities and circuits. “Transitioning to IP and updating the community infrastructure, operational headend purposes, and distant tools… contributed to improved community reliability above 99.7%,” reported Bryan Fullenkamp, IT community architect. Higher community up time can have an effect on grid uptime, actually preserving the lights on.
Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) re-imagined its manufacturing community basis to extend visibility and resilience. “Shut collaboration between manufacturing engineering, IT, and our strategic companions offered a way of shared possession, [making the network] a resilient, compliant spine for sensible manufacturing development,” mentioned Arno Thijssen, course of and automation engineer at KDP.
The 2026 ITA winners additionally showcase the significance of OT and IT collaboration, particularly for safety and visibility. Nationwide Grid was acknowledged for its initiative to digitize and increase the grid to organize for excessive climate situations and rising cyberattacks. “Eradicating silos inside OT and IT groups and getting the groups to interact and belief the collaboration course of… is the largest problem,” famous Adriano Antiquera, Nationwide Grid’s platform director.
Disney fosters IT/OT collaboration by ensuring that each groups are represented in each design, vendor, and structure dialogue. The corporate invested in joint coaching, together with Cisco certifications for OT engineers, and ISA/ICS safety coaching for IT workers. “All of the sudden, groups might see challenges from the opposite perspective, which accelerated collaboration and problem-solving,” mentioned Dan Mastropietro, a technical fellow with Disney’s international community engineering and choices.
Arkansas DOT introduced its IT and OT groups collectively to construct a reversible lane to alleviate congestion on a closely trafficked bridge. The venture required a fault-tolerant community spine for OT programs like real-time lane management, automated signage updates, and incident response coordination. “This structure fostered real-time information trade, permitting IT and OT groups to collaborate extra successfully,” mentioned Jeremy Hill, community administrator for the Arkansas DOT. The reversible lane has helped to lower commute occasions by as a lot as 30% throughout rush hours.
Simply throughout the state line, Alabama DOT built-in its IT community and OT-based clever transportation programs (ITS) to enhance roadway security. Chris Wilson, IT specialist, collaborated with OT groups to deploy visitors sign controllers, digital message programs, and cameras at exits alongside main interstate highways.
A 3rd frequent theme heard from this yr’s ITA winners is benefiting from the industrial community to detect points earlier than they change into issues. NorthWestern Vitality identifies issues prone to trigger outages through the use of superior metering know-how (AMI). “Enhanced monitoring permits us to detect points earlier and enhance response throughout our operations,” mentioned Kelly Ferriter, community supervisor at NorthWestern Vitality. Now the utility is extending its proactive strategy to wildfire danger mitigation through the use of AI-enabled cameras and climate stations for earlier consciousness. This all takes a dependable, versatile, industrial community.
AI additionally figures into the plans of different ITA winners. For instance, Texas DOT makes use of AI-based incident detection in Austin. “With quicker notifications for roadway incidents, TxDOT can cut back response occasions and clear the highway of crashes, stalled automobiles, or particles extra rapidly,” mentioned Anh Selissen, CIO for Texas DOT. “Faster clearance has lowered the incidence of secondary crashes by 29%, enhancing total highway security for the touring public.”
As a proud sponsor of the ITAs, Cisco is happy to see our prospects main the best way in industrial innovation. Congratulations to the winners!
Learn extra concerning the ITA winners right here
Be taught extra about Cisco Industrial Web of Issues (IoT) options right here
About Sensible Business
Sensible Business is devoted to delivering the very newest info on know-how tendencies in manufacturing verticals of each sort, from automotive to medical to aerospace to heavy equipment to electronics, and so on. The Sensible Business Awards is a Cisco-sponsored third-party program that gives public recognition for innovation management.