10 Predictive Maintenance Platforms for Manufacturing 2026: Featured at IIoT World Days 2025

As manufacturing moves toward 2026, the landscape of predictive maintenance is shifting from simple condition monitoring to “Agentic AI”, systems that don’t just alert you, but autonomously plan and execute multi-step resolutions. This evolution requires a robust data backbone to succeed.

The following 10 platforms, highlighted in IIoT World Days 2025 panel discussions, represent the specialized AI and data infrastructure making this future possible.

1. The Intelligence Layer: Specialized Predictive AI

These platforms focus on the “Brains” of the operation, analyzing data to predict failures and prescribe fixes.

Arch Systems

  • Description: Specializes in extracting value from existing machine data, particularly in electronics and discrete manufacturing. They utilize Generative AI to perform root cause analysis on downtime and quality issues.
  • Key Features:
    • Generative AI Integration: Uses GenAI to read logs, dashboards, and unstructured data to determine root causes.
    • Legacy Retrofit: Capable of extracting data from older machines without replacing them.
    • Global Scalability: Designed to manage standard data across factories in multiple countries.

Andrew Scheuermann,  CEO of Arch Systems, was part of  the “Closing the Skills Gap Before It Closes Your Factory” session at IIoT World Days 2025, citing 60 to 80% OEE increases where manufacturers replaced physical inspection stops with AI-driven quality validation. Arch Systems operates across hundreds of factories in 10+ countries.

Infinite Uptime

  • Description: Positions itself as a “reliability as a service” platform. It digitizes assets to predict failures and prescribe specific corrective actions via a “layered intelligent stack.”
  • Key Features:
    • Prescriptive AI: Goes beyond prediction to tell operators exactly what to fix and when.
    • Layered Intelligent Stack: Combines physics-based models with machine learning.
    • Outcome-Based Pricing: Uses an OPEX model to reduce upfront risk.

Karthikeyan Natarajan, Co-CEO of Infinite Uptime Inc., was part of the “Prescriptive AI in the Factory: Accessible for SMEs or Enterprise-Only?” session at IIoT World Days 2025, citing 25,000 digitized assets, 35,000 recommendations sent, and a 96% acknowledgment rate from customers confirming those prescriptions were useful. Reported results include 75% improvement in mean time between failures, 30% reduction in maintenance costs, and 15% capacity utilization gains at a large tire manufacturer.

Plex (by Rockwell Automation)

  • Description: A smart manufacturing platform integrating AI agents to handle complex production problems by correlating production drops (OEE) with underlying sensor data.
  • Key Features:
    • AI Agents: Uses agents to look at PLC sensors to determine why OEE dropped.
    • Process Correlation: Ties maintenance data directly to production metrics like inventory and quality.
    • Agentic Reporting: Generates reports and insights via natural language queries.

2. The Foundation: Data Operations & Edge Platforms

These platforms are the “Plumbing” and “Connectors” that ensure data is clean, structured, and AI-ready.

Cirrus Link

  • Description: Provides the MQTT and Sparkplug infrastructure that decouples data producers from consumers, establishing a “single source of truth.”
  • Key Features:
    • MQTT Sparkplug: Defines a standard for how industrial devices communicate context.
    • Decoupling: Allows adding new AI applications without disrupting the shop floor.
    • Bandwidth Efficiency: Report-by-exception technology saves network costs.

Cumulocity (by Software AG)

  • Description: An IoT platform for device management. It utilizes a “medallion architecture” to refine industrial data quality for AI training and deployment.
  • Key Features:
    • Medallion Architecture: Refines data from raw (bronze) to business-ready (gold).
    • Thin Edge: Supports deployment of models back to the edge for low-latency inference.
    • Device Management: Manages the full lifecycle of connected industrial devices.

HighByte

  • Description: An Industrial DataOps solution focused on Data Contextualization. It organizes raw data into readable asset models before sending it to predictive models.
  • Key Features:
    • Data Contextualization: Organizes raw data into logical models (e.g., a “pump” with all attributes).
    • UNS Enabler: Critical for building a Unified Namespace (UNS) architecture.
    • Edge-Native: Runs at the edge to prepare data for upstream systems.

Litmus

  • Description: An industrial edge data platform serving as the “data foundation.” It connects to legacy PLCs to collect and normalize data for AI models.
  • Key Features:
    • Edge Connectivity: Connects to legacy equipment (1960s-1980s machines) seamlessly.
    • Data Normalization: Structures raw data into usable formats (like JSON) at the edge.
    • Cloud Integration: Partners with AWS, Google, Azure, and Databricks.

Sam Elsner, VP Product Experience at Litmus, was part of the “Building Data Infrastructure for Predictive Operations” session at IIoT World Days 2025, describing the engineering reality of connecting legacy machines: handling physical network transitions from RS485 to Ethernet and managing junk bytes and missing data at the protocol level. As he put it, you need to “whisper to them better than anybody else, and then you write that down in code.”

3. The Analytics Backbone: Time-Series & Data Clouds

These platforms handle the “Memory”, the massive storage and high-speed querying required for predictive modeling.

CrateDB

  • Description: A real-time analytics database capable of handling massive streams of data for instant decision-making in fast-moving environments.
  • Key Features:
    • Real-Time SQL: Allows for querying massive datasets in real-time.
    • Hybrid Storage: Manages hot (recent) and cold (historical) data efficiently.
    • Dynamic Schema: Adapts to different data shapes from various devices.

InfluxData (InfluxDB)

  • Description: A purpose-built time-series database essential for the high-volume sensor data (RPMs, temperature, pressure) required for predictive models.
  • Key Features:
    • High-Volume Ingestion: Handles massive streams of sensor telemetry.
    • Edge-to-Cloud Sync: Processes data at the edge for alerts while syncing to the cloud for training.
    • Open Standards: Committed to open formats like Parquet and SQL to avoid lock-in.

Ben Corbett, Solutions Engineer, at InfluxData, participated in the “Predict, Prevent, Optimize: Real Results from Augmented Industrial Data” session at IIoT World Days 2025, describing how a chocolate factory eliminated day-long plant shutdowns by instrumenting ambient data, tracking viscosity and temperature alongside batch and recipe numbers, to identify the exact conditions causing material to stick in molds before it happened.

Snowflake

  • Description: A data cloud platform used for warehousing. It breaks down silos between IT and OT data, allowing AI/ML workloads on aggregated sets.
  • Key Features:
    • Data Aggregation: Brings ERP, supply chain, and OT data together for a holistic view.
    • AI/ML Support: Supports training machine learning models on vast historical datasets.
    • Cortex AI: Allows users to ask natural language questions about maintenance history.

Platform Comparison: 2026 Predictive Ecosystem

This table summarizes the core differentiators of each platform for quick evaluation.

Platform Primary Focus Best For Key Differentiator
Arch Systems Analytics/Retrofit Electronics & discrete manufacturing Using GenAI for root cause analysis on legacy machines.
Cirrus Link Infrastructure MQTT/Sparkplug connectivity Establishing a “Single Source of Truth” via MQTT.
CrateDB Real-Time DB High-scale industrial sensor streams Instant SQL analytics on massive “hot” IoT data firehoses.
Cumulocity IoT Platform Device Management & Analytics “Medallion architecture” for data quality tiers.
HighByte DataOps Data Modeling & Context Converting cryptic tags into human-readable models.
Infinite Uptime Prescriptive Service Asset reliability & vibration analysis “Reliability as a Service” with guaranteed outcomes.
InfluxData Time-Series DB High-volume sensor data storage Handling massive ingest rates for real-time monitoring.
Litmus Edge Data Platform Connecting legacy assets to cloud/AI Normalize data at the edge before it hits the cloud.
Plex Smart Mfg Platform Holistic production monitoring AI agents that correlate OEE drops with sensor data.
Snowflake Data Cloud IT/OT Data Aggregation Democratizing data access via natural language queries.

2026 Predictive Manufacturing FAQ

Q: What is “Agentic AI” in the context of maintenance? 

A: Agentic AI doesn’t wait for a human to ask a question. It detects an anomaly, identifies the cause, and takes action, such as generating a work order or adjusting machine parameters, all within predefined guardrails. Sebastian Trolli, Head of Research for Industrial Automation & Software at Frost & Sullivan, at IIoT World Days 2025 put it simply: “Co-pilots give you answers, agents give you outcomes.”

Q: Why do I need a Unified Namespace (UNS)? 

A: A UNS (enabled by tools like HighByte and Cirrus Link) creates a single, structured map of your entire factory’s data. This allows predictive platforms to access the “Single Source of Truth” without building hundreds of messy point-to-point connections. 

Q: Can these platforms work with 40-year-old “legacy” machines? 

A: Yes. Platforms like Litmus and Arch Systems are specifically designed to “retrofit” legacy PLCs and machines from the 1960s-80s, extracting data without requiring a full machine replacement. 

Q: What is a “Medallion Architecture”? 

A: Used by platforms like Cumulocity and Snowflake, this refers to a data quality framework: Bronze (raw data), Silver (cleaned/validated), and Gold (business-ready insights). It ensures your AI models aren’t trained on “garbage” data. Romina Guevara, former Chief Digital Officer at Michelin: “If our foundation is a little bit shaky, then the model will be shaky as well.”

Q: How do I choose between a specialized database (InfluxDB) and a data cloud (Snowflake)? 

A: Most implementations use both. InfluxDB handles high-speed real-time sensor data at the edge, Snowflake aggregates that data with business records for long-term AI training. As Calvin Hamus, Digital Manufacturing Leader at SkyIO, Inc., put it at IIoT World Days 2025: “It might be something as simple as putting a local time series DB on your edge compute” to keep costs down while maintaining real-time visibility.

Q: What is the most common reason predictive maintenance projects stall?

A: Skipping data validation before deploying the model. Romina Guevara, former Chief Digital Officer at Michelin: “The real question is not whether the model is ready, it is whether our data is ready.”

Disclosure Note

This article was developed based on the discussions and insights shared during the sessions at IIoT World Days 2025. It reflects the themes and perspectives presented throughout the event.

Some of the companies mentioned were official sponsors of IIoT World Days 2025. While the content is grounded in the event conversations, we note that some contributors were affiliated with sponsoring companies.

This article was written by Carolina Rudinschi, Co-founder of IIoT World