Moving beyond automation in process industries

Automation is everywhere in the process industries; it is maybe one of the most advanced markets in this regard. But businesses in this space are still feeling the crunch when it comes to flexibility and adaptability of their processes. A major challenge of integrating flexibility into processes is ensuring the high safety and quality margins for industries like pharmaceuticals and food production. To explore this and more, we sat down with Mark Hindsbo and Rebecca Vangenechten for this episode Siemens’ Future-Ready Podcast. **In this episode you’ll learn about:** (00:00) The state of automation (02:43) Unique challenges of process industries (06:09) Role of operations software (10:08) Real world use-cases **About the voices:** **Mark Hindsbo** joined Siemens in 2025 as Head of Operations Software. He is leading a team to build an integrated and modular industrial operations software suite that allows customers to design, engineer, and operate their factories, data centers, or plants – powered by agentic AI and digital twins. His extensive career includes leadership roles at Ansys, Parallels, and Microsoft, alongside experiences at The Boston Consulting Group, Novo Nordisk, and CERN. Mark is also an Adjunct Professor at Carnegie Mellon University. Born and educated in Denmark, he holds an M.S. in Applied Physics & Mathematics from the Technical University of Denmark. **Rebecca Vangenechten** has been the Head of Automation and Engineering for Process Automation at Siemens since 2023 – helping customers and partners through the entire plant lifecycle with engineering, consulting and modernization. But her background in Biomedical Sciences and Endocrinology is perfect for understanding the challenges of process industries. **Nick Finberg** is a technical marketing writer and coordinator for Software-Defined Everything, with a background in Nuclear Engineering. He has worked with experts to cover many industries and topics including Automotive, Battery, sustainability, and systems engineering.