The factory floor is the new margin battleground

(See Lenze at MachineBuilding.Live, 14 October 2026, on stand 130)

Operational technology in machines and processes, often referred to as OT, was long regarded as the domain of specialists: essential, technical and primarily operational. That separation is rapidly disappearing. In a manufacturing industry where energy remains uncertain, labour is structurally scarce, domain expertise is ageing and capital is scrutinising returns more closely, the quality of the operational foundation increasingly defines a company's financial room to manoeuvre.

As a result, the operational foundation is moving from factory language to boardroom language. Not because technology itself is becoming more important, but because the right axis selection; the drive axis best suited to function, load, energy profile and lifecycle has a direct impact on margin, delivery reliability and strategic agility.

The question, therefore, is no longer whether companies need to digitalise further. The question is whether their foundation is strong enough to convert digitalisation into real value.

Data only creates value when the foundation is right. In many factories and machine platforms, that foundation has developed historically: systems alongside systems, variants alongside variants, customisation layered on top of customisation. The biggest gaps are rarely found in a single machine or technology, but in the system around it: too many customer-specific exceptions, limited standardisation across platforms, software and service processes, and knowledge that too often resides in the minds of a small group of domain specialists. That may appear flexible, until maintenance becomes more expensive, development capacity stalls, capacity proves difficult to scale and downtime risk becomes a financial issue.

This is precisely where Europe's competitive risk emerges: not from a lack of technology, but from a lack of scalable simplicity.

The next step in productivity therefore does not require yet another technological layer, but discipline: simplifying, standardising and modularising. This starts with a sharper view of portfolios, variants and exceptions, followed by the definition of repeatable building blocks for engineering, software, service and upgrades. The principle of the 'best axis' fits this logic as well: not every movement requires more technology, but the best possible combination of performance, simplicity, energy efficiency and lifecycle value. Not as a technical preference, but as a board-level choice. Companies that reduce complexity shorten development time, lower error rates, increase uptime and make growth less dependent on scarce capacity and on the few domain specialists who still understand everything.

This becomes essential in times of labour shortages and limited resources. The challenge is not only that there are too few people; it is that the required domain knowledge is becoming increasingly concentrated and vulnerable. The solution is therefore not to demand ever more from scarce specialists, but to embed their expertise in standards, modules and repeatable concepts. In this way, expertise becomes scalable, transferable and less dependent on individual availability.

The parallel with grid congestion is striking. There, too, the core question proved not to be which technical solution could solve the problem, but which choice secures continuity, reduces risk and demonstrably strengthens the business case. The same shift is now needed in automation. The discussion must move beyond investment cost alone and towards total cost of ownership: energy consumption, maintenance, downtime, service, upgrades and flexibility ultimately determine the return.

That is where the difference becomes visible between selling technology and helping organise value.

Lenze explicitly chooses the second perspective. By uncovering the business questions early in the process, it becomes clear where vulnerability arises, where margin is lost and where variation restricts scalability. Based on that analysis, Lenze helps reduce complexity in the operational foundation, standardise machine architectures and determine the best axis selection for each application: not maximally technical, but optimal in terms of lifecycle, energy, serviceability and TCO.

The result is not a better technical story, but a more manageable business case. Less variation, lower lifecycle costs, greater predictability and faster scalability. Most importantly, less dependence on coincidence, exceptions, scarce resources and isolated domain expertise.

This is no longer a technical nuance. It is competitiveness. The winners of tomorrow will therefore not be the companies with the most technology, but the companies that dare to bring technology back to what matters in the boardroom: control over costs, continuity and scalable value. Because in the next phase of digitalisation, the winner will not be the one who adds the most, but the one who simplifies best.