Ignited: Striking Industrial Automation Conversations

This episode addresses one of the most pressing challenges in digital transformation and industrial automation: the critical shortage of skilled controls and SCADA engineers. Recorded live at the Ignition Community Conference (ICC) 2026, hosts Travis and Tom discuss what is driving this workforce gap, what it costs integrators and end users when positions remain unfilled, and how the pipeline of new engineering talent can be strengthened. The conversation also highlights the launch of Cognify Connect, a purpose-built platform designed to connect Ignition-certified engineers directly with the organizations that need them.

Guest: Kianni Brown

Most industrial operations have alarms, but far fewer have a standardized approach for what happens next when an incident occurs. Between detection and resolution, response workflows frequently break down—leading to unclear ownership, misdirected alerts, and recurring issues. In this episode, Travis and Tom sit down with Brooks Korfhage and Celine Mbanasor from IGear to discuss turning alarms from noise into structured action. They explore how pairing Ignition with IGear's SQUEAKS platform orchestrates incident response, matches the right responder to the right issue, and turns real-time operational data into continuous improvement insights.

Guests:

Brooks Korfhage (IGear)

The ICC Build-a-Thon is the ultimate test of speed and skill, where two Premier Integrator teams build live in front of the community for the orange blazer. In this ICC 2026 episode, Travis and Tom sit down with finalists Evelyn Stodghill (BW Design Group) and Brendan Peck (Prime Controls). They reflect on surviving the summer elimination challenge, tackling the 16-hour Opto 22 data center panel build, and being the very first engineers to build with Ignition 2027; putting its new AI features and charting tools to the test under real deadline pressure.

Guests:

Evelyn Stodghill (BW Design Group)

Most manufacturers have more data than they know what to do with, yet none of it speaks the same language or reflects how the factory actually operates. When operational issues arise, teams are often left calling specific individuals who hold critical system relationships entirely in their heads. In this episode, Travis and Tom sit down with Jeff Knepper and Graeme Welton from Flow Software, alongside Ryan Crownover from Vertech, to explore what it takes to build an industrial data architecture that goes beyond basic connectivity and dashboards. They discuss how a true knowledge model maps real-world relationships between assets, processes, people, systems, and events, fundamentally transforming raw operational data into actionable enterprise intelligence.

Guests:

Jeff Knepper (Flow Software)

Graeme Welton (Flow Software)

Ryan Crownover (Vertech)

Traditional industrial historians often struggle to scale across modern, multi-site enterprise environments without introducing support risks or performance bottlenecks. In this episode, we talk with Mike from Tiger Data and Colby from Inductive Automation about their joint partnership designed to deliver an enterprise-grade time-series data backend for Ignition. They share the story behind TimescaleDB's open-source adoption, the production challenges of running unsupported databases in mission-critical manufacturing, and how their new commercial solution provides high availability, enhanced Hyperfunctions, and scalable deployment options from edge to cloud.

Guest: Mike Freedman (Tiger Data / TimescaleDB) & Colby Clegg (Inductive Automation)

Over 1,900 engineers, integrators, executives, and builders gather at ICC 2026 in Sacramento, California, for what is shaping up to be the biggest Ignition Community Conference ever. To hear what the community is actually thinking, Travis and Tom set up a live studio right at the conference to interview eight community members across various backgrounds. Asking every guest the same set of questions, this episode captures unfiltered insights into why people keep coming back, what caught their attention this year, and what they love and look forward to in the world of Ignition.

Guests: Alicia Lomas (Lomas Manufacturing Consulting), Adrienne Meyer (CSIA), Daniel Wainberg (Contel Smart Energy), Uma Bangalore (EY), Cédric GROC (2GI Technologie), Elizabeth Hill Reed (DMC), Phil Turmel (Automation Pros).

Digital transformation initiatives rarely fail because of the software, they fail because the underlying data structure wasn't built to scale. In this episode, Travis and Tom talk with Dylan DuFresne, Co-Founder and Chief Architect at Abelara, about building industrial architectures designed for long-term viability. Dylan shares a practical, field-tested perspective on the Unified Namespace (UNS) as a core strategy rather than a buzzword, explaining how true data ownership, proper context, and bridging the gap between execution and strategy separate successful manufacturers from those left with disconnected systems.

Guest: Dylan DuFresne (Co-Founder & Chief Architect, Abelara)

Connecting plant-floor hardware is a solved problem; the real challenge is making that data act intelligently. In this episode, Travis and Tom sit down with Remus Pop, head of Concept Reply's industrial AI practice, to discuss his "Factory Brain" architecture. Remus explains why simply building dashboards isn't enough, how knowledge graphs bridge the gap between raw data and contextual intelligence, and how emerging tools like MCP and large language models are transforming plant operations. Discover why setting up robust data infrastructure on Ignition today is the key to unlocking AI tomorrow.

Guest: Remus Pop (Industrial AI Practice Lead, Concept Reply)

Deploying Ignition once is one thing. Deploying it across hundreds of sites around the world, keeping it running, pushing updates to every location simultaneously, and making it financially sustainable in the cloud is an entirely different challenge.

In this episode, hosts Travis Cox and Thomas Burke sit down with James Burnand from 4IR Solutions to unpack what enterprise-scale Ignition architecture actually looks like in practice. James breaks down a real-world, cloud-first deployment 4IR manages for a major global manufacturer, exploring how to maintain agility, keep operations reliable, and innovate without creating enterprise-wide chaos.

Guests: James Burnand from 4IR Solutions

Great software isn't just about functionality, it's about how effectively a human can use it when it counts. In this episode, Travis and Tom catch up with Julio Velasco, founder of IO SCADA and former Inductive Automation design engineer who helped establish early visual standards for the platform. Julio shares his core philosophy on operator-first HMI design, the technical responsibility of building clean industrial interfaces, and how his work training the next generation at the Volt Institute is helping close the industrial skills gap.

Guest: Julio Velasco (Founder, IO SCADA)