Operational Technology Viewpoints

Nalco Water uses digital transformation and the Microsoft Azure cloud to create better solutions for managing water with an eye towards reducing cost and risk while improving sustainability. Microsoft itself used this technology to drastically reduce water usage at one of its own datacenters.

The Digital Transformation discussions at this year’s Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) have evolved to include how owner-operators can use new technologies to solve real-world problems.

Companies are transforming operations and manufacturing using new time-series database technologies for the IIoT and the digital transformation. Traditional operational historians and time-series databases are changing and adapting to address the digital transformation. The new generation operational historian or industrial data platform is an industrial time-series database used to capture and transform time series data into operational visualization to support industrial operations analysis and decision-making and the digital transformation. The next gen historian is more than just a platform for data storage. Platforms for the today’s time-series databases should include on-premise, edge and cloud, etc.

Automation vendors continue to support standardisation efforts initiated by NAMUR, with demonstrators and reports on pilot implementations of Module Type Package (MTP) that facilitates modular production.  The impressive list*) of users, vendors, integrators and associations that participated in the common booth on MTP testifies on the perceived importance of modular production, and predicts significant rates of adoption of the standard.

Manufacturers around the globe are beginning the journey of digital transformation investment.  Some are well into the transformation.  Unfortunately, many enterprises are not sufficiently equipped from an organizational point of view.  Creating a strategic IT-OT investment plan is essential, as indicated in a previous post on this blog.  However, many will look at this as an IT-OT technology-based digital transformation investment plan, rather than holistically as an enterprise transformational plan that involves organizations and people as well as the latest digital technology.

Aera Energy described their IT journey to take advantage of their operating data by using the OSIsoft PI system to drive operational performance in oil and gas.

How have lithium batteries managed to dominate new grid-scale energy storage?

The global race toward smart manufacturing is driving the use of advanced automation technologies such as machine vision (MV). MV has become a key technology in both manufacturing and quality control; however, MV is rapidly becoming a crucial building block for Industrie 4.0-enabled smart factory infrastructure. MV is an essential element for smart factory infrastructure, due to its characteristics such as efficient communicating network and the intelligent exchange of information among sensors, devices, and machines.

Solar power in India is a fast growing industry. The World Bank has described India as having “among the best conditions in the world to capture and use solar energy.” The country's solar installed capacity reached 20 GW in February 2018. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), India doubled solar capacity in 2017-18 and is rapidly upscaling capacity to strive towards achieving 100 GW of solar by 2022. As part of India's ambitious solar program, the central government has set up a $350 million fund and the Yes Bank has committed to loan $5 billion to finance solar projects.

Although oil prices are rising, the crowds at Houston’s Offshore Technology Conference fell for the 4th consecutive year, dipping to the lowest level in more than a decade as the offshore oil & gas sector continues to wait for a recovery. The annual conference, which marked its 50th showing this week, opened with a sense of optimism as oil prices climbed toward $70 a barrel and activity seemed to be picking up in the Gulf of Mexico and other offshore oil fields around the world.