By Tom Fiske.
OSIsoft recently held its 2010 User Conference in San Francisco. This year marked the 21st time OSIsoft held the event, which attracted about 1,000 attendees from across the world. The event theme was “Real Time Information – Currency of the New Decade.” Conference highlights included OSIsoft executives discussing industry trends, product roadmaps, and key technology partnerships; keynote talks by prominent users and strategic partners demonstrating innovative uses of the PI System; and numerous product demonstrations and training sessions.
Several speakers talked about the current data explosion that makes it difficult to quickly and reliably make sense of the data and use it to make timely decisions to improve the bottom line. OSIsoft delivers the PI System to manage real-time operations data and events. Through its strategic partnerships with companies like Microsoft and SAP, to name just two, OSIsoft extends the functionality of the PI System to improve the contextualization, analysis, distribution, and presentation of information in real-time – and making real-time information the currency of the new decade.
Numerous user presentations demonstrated the value and versatility of the PI System and business application integration that turns real time data into actionable information. This information is used to support a variety of initiatives, such as sustainability, energy management, condition monitoring, asset management, performance management, and the smart grid.
Data Explosion Provides Opportunity for Improvements
Organizations must continuously improve operations to meet or exceed performance targets. Data is collected to provide a measure of how well a company is doing against its key performance indicators (KPIs). Data is also collected on virtually everything that might be useful in identifying asset- or performance-related problems and highlighting opportunities for improvement. Proliferation of sensors, automation systems, and IT has further encouraged the buildup of data on all aspects of the process, equipment, and operations.
The resulting data explosion provides an opportunity for organizations to solve problems and make improvements that can have a positive effect on the bottom line. OSIsoft delivers the PI System, a scalable and secure infrastructure for managing real-time operations data and events. OSIsoft’s PI System addresses the growing demand for instant, critical, and actionable information across a site or across the enterprise so that companies can use their assets more effectively. The PI System captures, aggregates, and contextualizes business-critical data and transforms it into a reliable source of information. Through its strategic partnerships with companies like Microsoft and SAP, OSIsoft extends the functionality of the PI System to improve the contextualization, analysis, distribution, and presentation of information in real time. Judging by the interest in their user conference it is obvious that they are succeeding.
Highlights from the conference included:
· OSIsoft executives highlighting industry trends, product roadmaps, and key technology partnerships
· Keynote talks by prominent users and strategic partners demonstrating innovative uses of the PI System
· Numerous product demonstrations and training session
Pat Kennedy Discusses Advanced Business Integration
In his keynote address, OSIsoft CEO and Founder, Pat Kennedy, discussed infrastructure, sustainability, and efficiency improvements through advanced business integration. Dr. Kennedy noted the transition from the industrial age to the information age and made the connection between infrastructure and IT. During the industrial age, roads and bridges provided the infrastructure. Today, in the information age, sensors, networks, and software provide the infrastructure. In any plant, the flow of material, energy, and information is vital to operations. Dr. Kennedy adroitly argues that the flow of real-time information is the key differentiator and the “currency” of the new decade.
Dr. Kennedy also discussed the smart grid and how it is becoming part of our infrastructure, where bi-directional communication is essential. Re-newable energy is important to sustainability efforts, but has diurnal and seasonal fluctuations that must be managed and controlled more effectively to be a reliable source of energy. This requires better flow of real-time information to connect and balance energy loads and sources. Most companies are also adopting sustainability programs, which basically mean running their processes as efficiently as possible to conserve resources and lessen environmental affect. Dr. Kennedy provided several examples of how companies address sustainability to save millions of dollars.
Connecting real-time information to business software not only enhances sustainability and efficiency efforts, but also improves profitability. OSIsoft and SAP are collaborating to facilitate information exchange to help make the information more valuable.
Klaus Heimann Discusses Integration between PI and SAP
Senior Vice President of SAP AG, Klaus Heimann, indicated that about 40 percent of all utilities, representing two to three trillion Euros, are billed through SAP systems. However, ERP systems are transactional in nature and don’t know how to directly deal with real-time data.
OSIsoft and SAP have had a partnership since 1996. The two companies have over 5,000 common customers. With the changing business requirements and evolving technology, SAP’s customers in the asset-oriented industries, like utilities, see the benefits of linking real-time data and events to business applications. SAP sees the PI System as a metadata management system, or unifying and synchronizing gateway from the real-time domain to business applications. SAP and OSIsoft leverage their partnership to create the linkage in new innovative ways and in new business applications like smart grid.
Mr. Heimann gave an overview of numerous power industry applications using both real-time and transactional information to perform activities such as billing using measured data going through the PI System while determining if meters are connected or disconnected. For this application, OSIsoft’s meter data unification and synchronization (MDUS) system integrates advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) head-end systems with SAP’s AMI Integration software for utilities. Mr. Heimann also provided other examples, including examples for both generation and distribution within the industrial and private sectors. Mr. Heimann extended the discussion of integrating real-time data with transactional information to numerous smart grid initiatives.
Bernard Morneau Reviews State of Company and Vision
Mr. Morneau talked about the “new order” emerging from the post recession economy that calls for a different level of normality or sustainability. The speed at which business must operate and make changes relies on the availability of real-time information. Real-time information allows a higher level of performance, innovation, and resource optimization, reinforcing the assertion that it is a currency. The value of information is apparent when used in conjunction with an asset for process optimization, condition monitoring, predictive maintenance, and other purposes. Real-time information creates better situational awareness so people can manage assets and businesses more effectively and make smarter, more intelligent decisions.
Mr. Morneau reviewed the state of the company and showed that the privately held company has been steadily growing and profitable over its 30 years of operations. OSIsoft now has more than 700 employees located in 13 countries around the world. He also talked about the “OSIsoft Experience” where customers state simply that “PI works” and OSIsoft has best in-class-technical support. He also talked about the value proposition of the “killer app” PI System across the enterprise. OSIsoft has worked on expanding the scale to which the PI System can be used in an organization along with its ease of use.
Nalco Company Creates Actionable Knowledge from Data
John Schlitt, Business Manager for the Automation center of excellence of Nalco Company, a process improvement company with more than 70,000 customers, discussed how the company uses OSIsoft’s PI System and Mi-crosoft’s Business Intelligence applications to help its customers improve their operations and profitability.
Nalco collects a lot of data from its customers and uses that data to improve their processes and make their assets last longer. For instance, Nalco’s refinery customers operate on slim margins, so improving efficiency and reducing downtime have a significant effect on their bottom line. In addition, these companies push their assets beyond design capacity, which tends to create additional problems, such as incomplete breakup of hydrocarbons and equipment failures. Nalco addresses these problems by providing specialty chemical treatments and services that aid in the processing and protects assets so refineries can keep running longer.
An obstacle to apply Nalco’s solution is acquiring and analyzing the data, which resides in isolated systems like DCSs, LIMS, and SPC applications for each unit. Aggregating data and generating reports is often a time-consuming manual process that leaves little time to actually solve problems. Nalco leverages OSIsoft’s and Microsoft’s technology to create actionable knowledge from refined data by:
· Centralizing data collection
· Developing condition-based maintenance and performance-based optimization solutions
· Providing role-based visibility into plant performance and operations with on demand summary information and KPIs
· Providing drill down capability into KPIs and data
Microsoft Drives Business Performance with Mainstream BI
Craig Hodges, GM Manufacturing and Resources Sector at Microsoft, discussed how innovations from Microsoft enhance business processes within organizations. Microsoft innovations center around three offerings: Microsoft Office, SharePoint 2010, and SQL Server 2008 R2.
Mr. Hodges talked about several key areas of innovations including “line of business application integration.” This brings disparate systems together to serve data to users and consumers of that data in common tools like SharePoint, Outlook, and Office. Mr. Hodges also emphasized enterprise collaboration through SharePoint that has enhanced capability to find, use, and share knowledge, expertise, customers, partners etc. He also stressed collaborative sharing of Office documents by sharing and editing the document in real time, as opposed to passing them around in a sequential manner. Microsoft unifies communications technology to tie together disparate devices like telephony, web conferencing, e-mail, voice mail, etc. into a single environment to enhance productivity and collaboration.
Microsoft is improving the ability to act on data early in the business cycle by aggregating and analyzing data from different sources. Its new complex event processing (CEP) capability, called StreamInsight, allows stream data from multiple sources to be queried and analyzed, even before it is stored in a database. This significant development allows companies to use multivariable data input streams to perform numerous functions like monitoring the health and performance of assets in real-time. If predefined conditions are met, alert notifications can be sent out to the appropriate personnel.
Another innovation by Microsoft is to “democratize” business intelligence by making BI available and usable to the masses. Some major key developments are embodied within Excel 2010. Excel 2010 now incorporates the same fidelity, regardless of where it is running, for example, on a cell phone, laptop, desktop, or web application. Spreadsheets and other data can be published on SharePoint 2010 to share a single version of the truth. Excel 2010 also incorporates better visualization and analysis capability with slicers, sparklines, and PowerPivot, an add-on that extends functionality to include use of millions of rows of data.
User Presentations Highlight Drivers for Using PI System
The conference provided the opportunity for dozens of OSIsoft’s users to share their experiences with the PI System. Presentations came from diverse industries, such as fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy; cement; chemical; refining; oil & gas; pharmaceutical & biotech; and pulp & paper, to name several.
The conference featured user talks on a wide range of applications. Topics covered varied from wind fleet management, energy management in cement plants, monitoring oil and gas assets, sustainability in a semiconductor facility, asset management in power generation facility, and performance monitoring in a steel plant.
The sessions were well attended and, judging by the Q&A discussions, most attendees found them interesting and informative. The diversity of applications is a testament to OSIsoft’s focus on its core business to provide a robust and versatile infrastructure to manage real-time performance information.
During the closing session, Brian Helms of Alcoa described how his company—one of the largest power users in North America—has used the PI System as its key resource for shaping its demand response on an industrial scale. Demand response is a smart grid strategy to manage electrical energy transmission and distribution congestion. Careful coordination of this large smelter allows it to lower operating costs and helps the Midwest ISO deliver power more reliably to ten US states and one Canadian province.
Product Theater Sessions
The user conference included a product theater session each day with multiple tracks consisting of presentations given by OSIsoft development staff and other experts. The sessions gave users the opportunity to meet staff and learn the latest developments and product features of the PI System.
Last Word
The OSIsoft Users Conference 2010 was a success by any measure. The attendance grew by more than 20 percent from the previous year. The conference theme accurately conveyed the growing importance of pervasive on-demand rea- time actionable information for virtually every aspect of organizations. OSIsoft’s alliances with Microsoft and SAP extend the value of its ability to collect, aggregate, analyze, distribute, share, collaborate, and act on information that improves situational awareness and improves performance.
User presentations demonstrated the value and versatility of the PI System for providing the robust infrastructure to support real time information for condition, asset, and performance management, as well as supporting a variety of other initiatives such as sustainability, energy management, and the smart grid.
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