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INDUSTRY 4.0/DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
own and maintain that asset because they can offer it as a service package. The possibilities are, quite literally endless, and getting your company on the strategic path to this type of activity is vital for the sustainability of the business. To achieve successful digital
Humans are still the most important asset in any industrial organisation, and technology and data, at their most powerful, enable the human element, rather than replace it
transformation, businesses need to recognise data as an asset. As mentioned, digital transformation is achievable for any enterprise, but it is often an assumption from companies less advanced in DX that a successful transformation will mean a complete (and costly) overhaul of all operations and replacement of assets, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. The tools for a successful transformation already exist within most industrial facilities, it just takes a digital transformation partner to show how to harness them.
A FLEXIBLE APPROACH TO DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
Andy Graham, Solutions Manager, SolutionsPT, believes digital transformation (DX) can be successfully applied by every enterprise, whatever its size, in a step-by-step approach that delivers return on investment at every stage
t is well understood that the lifeblood of digital transformation is data. Modern industrial plants are bristling with raw data capture points, collecting the data required to start to make efficiency improvements. But data is not transformational until it is contextual and used to drive insights that can be used to make improvements. The notion that digital transformation requires huge investment in new equipment is erroneous. Understanding how to identify and undertake a digital transformation strategy may not be easy, but with the right approach and the right help tailored to your needs, it can be simple. Digital transformation needs to be viewed with an edge-to-enterprise outlook, taking relevant data from as many sources as possible and contextualising it to offer the right information to the right users in a timely way, from operators on the shop-floor to managers in the office and owners in the boardroom, the same digital information thread should inform decision making. Examples of how free-flowing
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contextualised data can be helpful, and are a good way of seeing the kind of change that becomes possible.
All industrial environments need maintenance, so maintenance planning and management is a great case study. Data around maintenance has also been collected and used to inform maintenance procedures. From how often parts fail, to how long it takes
10 MAY 2023 | PROCESS & CONTROL
to replace them and whether to stockpile parts, to measuring Mean Time To Failure (MTTF), maintenance data has long been scrutinised. What’s changing with digital transformation technologies and practices is the breadth of data, insight levels and speed at which data can be brought to bear. Now, with relatively cheap IIoT sensors, even older equipment and machinery can be sending live data to a central repository. Seeing how hot a machine is running, for example, tracked against its load, could give you an idea about an issue long before an outage. Perhaps vibration is also being measured, perhaps the machine is in a remote location but a CCTV camera feed can also offer a visual. Perhaps the maintenance team have devices that link them directly into live data from the machines they are tasked with maintaining and can set their own schedules, draw down manuals and/or use mixed reality to speed up diagnostics or fixes. Perhaps several maintenance teams are tasked with managing multiple distributed assets (such as a water company) and their movements and workloads are managed centrally by management with a 360 degree 7/365 view of all equipment. Perhaps preventive maintenance also includes using other forms of data (such as weather forecasting) to reduce risk to systems. Perhaps specialised OEMs have access to certain usage statistics to offer direct support to your assets. Perhaps, in the future, they’ll continue to
A vital function of the digital transformation journey is how it can improve the work-life of the humans in your business, so that they have the tools to be more productive and to deliver continuous improvement. That’s why a focus of digital transformation has to be the day-to-day operations, and as IT and software continue to make inroads into traditional engineering environments the importance of low-code and no-code solutions grows. What we have seen from enterprises already advanced in digital transformation is the deployment of platforms that can be managed by all operators, no matter where they sit on the IT-OT spectrum. Low-code platforms also allow for easy scalability, since once one machine, line or facility has been coded, it can be rolled out across multiple instances within the organisation very easily.
It is also important to consider the way digital transformation affects the workers themselves. An advanced DX capability, requires ‘the connected worker’. This Connected Worker is connected, via data, technology and dashboards, to the plant, to one another, and to those in the control room, whether they are at the same location or not. All parties are able to access the same information which is augmented to suit the needs and responsibilities of the user. Having SolutionsPT onside as a dedicated digital transformation partner now comes with a new subscription model called AVEVA Flex. Rather than dealing with long licensing agreements that lock companies into certain solutions, it makes the entire AVEVA offering available to deliver the most value specific to your needs, while being able to explore new capabilities without excessive CAPEX or risk.
SolutionsPT
www.solutionspt.com
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