Mar., 21/ABB, Accenture, Intel Corporation and Microsoft announced an alliance to help manufacturers bridge the gap between plant floor operations and enterprise IT systems. The alliance aims to help manufacturers by simplifying integration, gaining greater visibility into their businesses, making informed, real-time business decisions and enhancing their financial performance.

The four companies will provide a full range of computing diagnostics, solution design, development and integration services for manufacturers.

The team's joint development work will help customers gain access to manufacturing automation technology that will work seamlessly in a plant environment and integrate with a wide collection of enterprise IT.

"Removing the barriers to real-time data synchronization must be part of the overall business equation for collaborative manufacturing," said Larry O'Brien, Director of Process Industry Research for ARC Advisory Group. "No single company today can do this across the enterprise.

To achieve this in a way that yields a common direction for manufacturers will take the combined efforts of strong companies such as those included in the Industrial IY alliance. The collective resources of the alliance partners bring automation and power products, manufacturing solution expertise, robust computing and networking, and program management and integration skills together to support a powerful open architecture for enterprise solutions.