Welcome to Episode 219 of Manufacturing Hub. In this episode, we dive into the evolution of industrial data infrastructure with Jeroen Coussement, Founder and CEO of Factry. Factry is building modern historian and MES software platforms that help manufacturers collect, contextualize, and act on operational data at scale.

We unpack the critical role of historians in modern manufacturing environments. While traditional historians focused on archiving time-series data, today’s requirements go far beyond that. Jeroen outlines how a modern historian must fulfill three foundational roles:
Efficient high-volume time-series data acquisition
Contextual modeling across complex factory assets
Democratized access and self-service tools for operations teams

This episode covers:
The differences between SCADA, MES, and historians
The evolution from legacy platforms like OSIsoft PI to cloud-native historians
Architectures for on-prem, cloud, and hybrid historian deployments
Real-world use cases like wind turbine optimization for shadow flicker mitigation
Common challenges in digital transformation, including network modernization and change management
How manufacturers can scale from data collection to full analytics enablement

Jeroen also shares why point solutions often lead to fragmentation, and how building a robust data foundation opens the door to advanced tools like AI, unified namespace, and better decision-making.

📍 Guest: Jeroen Coussement, Founder and CEO at Factry
🌐 https://www.factry.io

📚 Resources Mentioned:
Factry Historian: https://www.factry.io/products/factry-historian
IT/OT Insider: https://insider.itot.io
Canary Historian: https://www.canarylabs.com/
AVEVA PI System: https://www.aveva.com/en/solutions/pi-system/
GE Proficy Historian: https://www.ge.com/digital/applications/historian
Joltek Consulting: https://www.joltek.com/

⏱️ YouTube Timestamps
00:00 Intro and welcome
02:00 Jeroen’s journey from bioscience engineer to founder of Factry
05:00 What is an industrial historian and why it matters
09:00 The relationship between SCADA, MES, and historians
12:00 Legacy historian vendors and what’s changing
15:00 The shift to cloud-native and open data systems
18:00 When and why manufacturers choose to implement a historian
21:00 Software cost vs implementation cost
23:00 Common historian architectures: on-prem, cloud, hybrid
27:00 Regional differences in adoption across US and Europe
30:00 Use case: Wind turbine shadow flicker mitigation via historian
35:00 Can historians ever feed data back into PLCs?
39:00 Change management and user training are key
42:00 Layering MES and quality tools on top of a historian
46:00 Why point solutions fail and unified platforms win
49:00 Empowering domain experts with self-service analytics
52:00 Predictions for the future of historians
54:00 Career advice for those entering the industrial data space
56:00 Who should reach out to Factry