This article originally appeared on Control and IndustryWeek. With all the performance-boosting technology solutions that Rockwell Automation brings to bear on behalf of its industrial customers, it's sometimes easy to forget that Rockwell Automation is a global manufacturer in its own right. As such, it shares many of the same challenges that its customers around the world face—and benefits from those same technology solutions. At the welcome keynote address at the RSTechED conference in Orlando, Fla., Rockwell Automation executives shared with nearly 2,000 conference attendees from 39 countries the company's ongoing journey to realize its vision of a "Connected Enterprise," in which increasingly intelligent devices and assets, together with secure and ubiquitous network connectivity, enable individuals to make better decisions more quickly than ever before.