Topics
- Standards & Architecture
- Migration & Procurement
- Lifecycle Economics
- Founder Perspective
- Industry Analysis
Editor's Selection
Where the OPA conversation is moving in 2026
Three pieces we'd start with if you're new to the standard, or returning after a year away.
Founder Perspective
Four Things I Got Wrong About OPA
Four things I misjudged about Open Process Automation when I started in 2017 — and the one structural argument that has held up remarkably well.
Buyer Perspective
Two Kinds of Openness
Feature-level openness and architectural openness look almost identical in a procurement process. Their lifecycle behavior, fifteen years on, is not the same at all.
Buyer Perspective
Integrators Are the Bottleneck
The supplier ecosystem for Open Process Automation is more mature than the integrator ecosystem — and that makes integrator selection the most consequential decision in an OPA procurement.
All Posts
The full archive
Founder Perspective
Four Things I Got Wrong About OPA
Four things I misjudged about Open Process Automation when I started in 2017 — and the one structural argument that has held up remarkably well.
Buyer Perspective
Two Kinds of Openness
Feature-level openness and architectural openness look almost identical in a procurement process. Their lifecycle behavior, fifteen years on, is not the same at all.
Buyer Perspective
Integrators Are the Bottleneck
The supplier ecosystem for Open Process Automation is more mature than the integrator ecosystem — and that makes integrator selection the most consequential decision in an OPA procurement.
Technical Practice
Interface Drift Kills Open Architectures
The most common failure mode in OPA implementation is not technical. Interfaces erode through the accumulation of locally rational decisions — and three disciplines prevent it.
Founder Perspective
What I Got Wrong About OPA
After working on Open Process Automation since 2017, the technical problems turned out to be the easy part. The hard part was the organization around the architecture.
Lifecycle Economics
The TCO Comparison Your CFO Isn't Seeing
Compared on commissioning cost, a traditional DCS wins. Compared across a full 25-year operating life, the picture inverts — and the shape of the cost matters as much as the total.
Lifecycle Economics
Why Vendor Lock-In Is the Hidden Tax on Your Automation Budget
Across a 25-year control system lifecycle, the largest cost driver rarely appears on any capital request — the compounding premium of single-vendor dependency.
Industry Perspective
The Variable Is Adoption
The technical hypothesis behind Open Process Automation has moved from claim to evidence. The questions that decide OPA's future in 2026 are no longer technical ones.
Want the full picture?
The State of Open Process Automation 2026 — a 40-page assessment from inside the standard.