Successful endeavors traditionally start with a clear business plan that has a defined expected outcome. Industrial IoT has no such luxury. Though the “talk” suggests grand opportunities, many of the success stories so far have largely been narrowly focused and – to a certain degree - proprietary. While this is not really what IIoT is about, there are many things we can do to put it back on track.

ARC Advisory Group held the company's sixteenth India Forum for the process and discrete industries, from July 5-6, 2018 in Bangalore, India. This year’s ARC India Forum, Digitizing and Securing Industry, Infrastructure, and Cities, attracted over 250 delegates. The Forum session topics covered industry and infrastructure moving towards digitization; automation trends, cybersecurity; smart technologies and smart cities; and several end user experiences. At the event, Ankur Goyal, Head – Strategic Business Development (Industry 4.0), Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions, presented an end user presentation entitled, “Unleashing the Potential of Industry 4.0.”

At the NAMUR General Assembly held on November 8 and 9, 2018, two topics were directly related to Information Modelling or data modelling. Data models enable information interoperability by specifying which information is stored where, and what the content of that information is. Models for asset information enable the efficient management of information of an asset. Asset information is seen as increasingly important and forms a basis for engineering, qualification and compliance, commissioning, operation, safety, maintenance and decommissioning.

While operating companies in upstream, midstream, and downstream oil & gas have been utilizing leak detection systems (LDS) for decades; new regulations, rising concerns about pipeline integrity and cybersecurity, and the availability of several powerful new technologies have spurred increased interest in these solutions among end users. This bodes well for the overall market in the coming years. Today’s increasingly software-based leak detection systems incorporate advanced automation plus new, disruptive technologies such as predictive analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve pipeline safety, availability, and security.

A key driver for servitization is the increasing complexity of products. It has become impractical for a general-purpose maintenance team at the end customer’s site to support and maintain modern equipment containing mechatronics, electronics, software and IP.  As a result, users look to the supplier for support.  Services have become an inseparable component of the product.  End-users who are involved in the supplier section of complex assets should include servitization in the selection criteria.

These are both challenging and exciting times for business users -- and specifically for EAM users seeking actionable information in a sea of disparate data. With a wide variety of data sources in use in organization today, finding the right information, at the right time, is more important than ever.

Advantech IoT Co-Creation Summit was held in November 1~2 at the Suzhou International Expo Center, over 5,000 participants from 56 countries and regions attended it.

In asset intensive industries, such as oil and gas, routine maintenance and inspections are crucial for proper asset management. Regular maintenance and inspection works also help to ensure workplace safety. Various new technologies are playing a major role to help improve and simplify these routine tasks and thus, in turn improve the integrity and reliability of assets and infrastructure. Remote monitoring is one of the latest technologies used in the oil and gas and other process industries for better asset management.

For decades, operating companies have used artificial lift optimization (ALO) systems to enhance oil and gas production. But in today’s “lower for longer” oil price market, with owner-operators, independent E&P companies, and other industry stakeholders trying to squeeze out more profits per barrel of oil equivalent, solutions designed to optimize artificial lift systems are in greater demand than ever. New age automation technologies, the trend toward digitalization, and the emerging Industrial IoT (IIoT), help further increase the value proposition for today’s artificial lift optimization solutions.