Power Apps the Gateaway to Industry 4.1

Industry 4.1 is here and it is the next step in the industrial revolution. The latest technology solutions are much more accessible, more flexible for implementation in different industries, and easier for adoption by the organizations. How can you integrate them into your business strategy?

This was the core concept in our webinar on 12 May ‘Power Apps: Gateway to Industry 4.1​’.

We analyzed the enterprise digital transformation towards Industry 4.1 and shared some expert advice on how to use Microsoft Power Apps and Microsoft Power Platform as an accelerator of the process.

The 3 key takeaways of the webinar:

  1. The subsets of Industry 4.0
  2. What the future holds – Industry 4.1
  3. Microsoft Power Apps: The getaway to Industry 4.1

The subsets of Industry 4.0

Physical assets are becoming more and more software-enabled. Along with this, they are getting more complicated in their construction. Thus, enterprises need a new model to operate them successfully. 

The growing ability to use streams of business and operational data to drive machine intelligence and access insights supports businesses to make decisions and forecasts based on real-time data. Digital twins are the solution that helps drive this AI momentum and achieve efficiency in operations.

We discussed in more depth the structure of digital twins and what are the difficulties that hinder their implementation.

The new age of Industry 4.1

Industry 4.0 is currently a lofty goal for which we are accumulating tons of information and research but real applications are almost missing.

The application of all this knowledge paves the path to Industry 4.1. We examined:

  • Why enterprises have to start measuring time-to-value
  • How this approach makes the new Industry more accessible to them
  • What part of the Industry 4.1 is the consumer of the subsets – smart cities, smart factory, digital twins)

Microsoft Power Platform the low-code development platform

Over 2.5 million developers are using Microsoft Power Platform to build apps, analyze BI, and automate workflows in low code.

Angel made an overview of the different aspects of Microsoft Power Platform then described how each of them contributes to the ecosystem of smart enterprises.

Microsoft Power Apps: The Q&A session

After the presentation, we had a Q&A session with the participants regarding technical processes and how to use the different parts of the platform.

Q: What about data ownership? Is all data going to Microsoft servers?

A: The Power Platform can leverage the CDS, which is the cloud storage in Azure, but it is not the only option. You can use your server it is not mandatory to store the information in Microsoft servers

Q: What are the advantages of Microsoft Power apps except for the Microsoft ecosystem (Microsoft Power Platform)?

A: It is the main one. Let’s say there are 5-6 major players on the market. Some of them are Salesforce, Appian, Mendix, Outsystems. What Microsoft did for the last year and a half with the Power Platform is much more than what other providers have done in the last 5 years. What Microsoft delivers with its products offers more advantages as a centralized product along with all other additions. When we take a look at the features of the different platforms from a technical point of view things are pretty much the same. However, none of the other players can compare with the value that is being provided in regards to the ecosystem of Microsoft.

Q: Are there connectors for MySQL and PostgreSQL? 

A:MySQL and PostgreSQL are premium connectors thus you will need a separate license. Here you can check the full list of connectors.

Q: Can it be run outside of Azure or have CDS on your premise?

A: CDS is available only for cloud solutions. You can download the information if you want to but the processing is done in the cloud.

Conclusion

Thank you, for joining us at this webinar! Stay tuned for June when we will go into greater detail about the method of implementation and maybe even test it.

You can watch the webinar below: