Real-time operational intelligence changes operations

14th March 2014

By: Mia Breytenbach

Creamer Media Deputy Editor: Features

  

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Global manufacturing, industrial and mining operations are benefitting from new technology that analyses operations, detects and predicts faults and communicates with technicians using mobile devices and applications from America-based manufacturer and supplier General Electric.

General Manager: Middle East & Africa Intelligent Platforms Daniel Coetzee states that real-time operational intelligence (RtOI) is changing the way companies operate, adding that the monitoring software will send the appropriate recorded information of operations to the relevant operators and technicians at the appropriate time and to the relevant place.

The RtOI software will communicate directly with the nearest technician and will inform them of faults and possible solutions on the machines’ operations, he says.

“The software will also detect and report faults that are going to happen, sometimes weeks in advance of what would have been a catastrophic failure, which enables technicians to deal with the issue timeously.”

The RtOI software called Proficy Mobile runs on all modern smartphones and tablets, whether it is on Apple or Android operating systems, and increases operational efficiency, Coetzee notes.

The RtOI system will send information to the Proficv Mobile enabled tablet while technicians are walking through a plant, providing information on machines in the vicinity and allowing managers to monitor plant performance from their offices or homes, he says.

Meanwhile, a sophisticated General Electric RtOI computing system runs patented software, which includes geospatial intelligence and analytics for presentation and action on the Proficy Mobile device. This system uses an extensive database of statistical information and information of previous monitored events.

“This enables us to predict what will happen, adding an additional layer of enhancement,” Coetzee says.


Benefitting from RtOI

Coetzee notes that although South Africa currently faces tough financial conditions, owing to varying exchange rates, labour unrest, commodity price pressure, aging plants, and increasing utility costs, RtOI provides organisations with actionable knowledge to drive productivity and efficiency improvements.

“A gas company improved regulatory compliance by empowering controllers with control-room functionality on a mobile tablet, and a food manufacturer improved quality by enabling operators to respond faster to alarms,” he notes.

In addition, a water utility improved collaboration among its team members by enabling mobile crews to capture notes and execute work instructions, which, in turn, enabled the crews to better manage remote field and plant assets with a small team.

Further, large organisations operating across several sites use analytics to improve processes and decision-making for significant energy savings.


New Products

General Electric has recently introduced its Predix software, which enables asset and operational enhancement by providing a standard way to run industrial-scale analytics and connect machines, data and people.

“Predix, which is deployed on machines, on site or in the cloud, combines an industry-leading stack of technologies for distributed computing and big data analytics, asset management, machine-to-machine communication and mobility,” Coetzee says.

In addition, the company’s Proficy Mobile is a tablet-based application for Apple or Android that turns vast amounts of raw data into simple, actionable knowledge.

“The Proficy Mobile application integrates directly with existing systems and workflows that record data and events. The conversion of data into information empowers all workers to share more information about operations in context and at all levels, which allows for assets to perform better and processes to run more predictably,” he notes.

Further, the company notes that there is a demand for the Proficy SmartSignal predictive analytics software, which identifies impending equipment problems early across all process industries and helps avoid unexpected shutdowns and catastrophic failure. 

Proficy MaxxMine, which is an advanced and proven remote monitoring and diagnostic software solution that combines process and asset enhancement in a single offering, has also become a popular software solution, Coetzee adds.

“The software helps operators to make timely and accurate decisions that balance process performance with equipment health.”

Other products in demand include controllers that offer computational power at the machine, as that enables better communication and increases the number of sensors that can be connected to each machine.  “Big data” historians that log data at millisecond timestamps, and which use programming framework Hadoop architecture to efficiently store data in the cloud, as system availability is paramount, are also necessary for better management of data systems.

Further, he notes that predictive analytic solutions that convert masses of data into actionable knowledge in a mobile form factor are also popular, as data can only drive outcomes for an organisation if analytics can present actionable knowledge to the right person at the right time.

Need for Skills

Coetzee notes an emerging need for data scientists in the industry.

“Sensors and control systems are generating gigabytes of data, but while powerful analytics can be developed to make sense of the data, there are shortages of data scientists to help executives add more context to the new information they are seeing,” he notes.

The data presented on user-interface dashboards often do not present all the necessary information, and the real value might be found in one or two layers behind the dashboard level, he adds.

Potential for industry growth

Although people have embraced mobility in their lives, as the carrying of smartphones indicate, a massive gap has emerged between the world of machines, and mobility and analytics, Coetzee says.

“When people go to work at a mine, mill, plant or factory, they have to work with plants, technology and processes that were designed before the analytical and mobility era. Aging plants are limited by technology and processes, based on outdated concepts of central control rooms, two-way radios, paper-based work instructions and reactive reporting.

“The biggest potential for growth has to be bridging the gap between the physical world of machines and that of analytics and mobility. We call this revolution the ‘Industrial Internet’,” he says.

Coetzee further notes that, by 2020, 50-billion machines will be connected to the Internet and will account for 50% of Internet traffic, while it currently accounts for less than 7%, which will be “phenomenal growth”.

“The “Industrial Internet” is a way to change the world, and you can do it with one intelligent step at a time.”

He concludes by stating that all companies will have to bridge the gap between machines and the new era of analytics and mobility.

Edited by Megan van Wyngaardt
Creamer Media Contributing Editor Online

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