The second day of ARC Advisory Group's 14th India Forum for the process and discrete industries, "Industry in Transition: Navigating the New Age of Innovation", continued on the same enthusiastic note as on the first day. Delegates networked, suppliers explained new technologies, and discussed interesting case studies and best practices.

ARC Advisory Group hosted its 14th India Forum for the process and discrete industries, Industry in Transition: Navigating the New Age of Innovation, July 7-8, 2016. This two-day forum attracted close to 270 delegates who came to learn and share information about the innovative technologies that are dramatically altering today's industrial landscape.

For more than a decade, communities around the globe have experienced an increased number of storms of historic proportions and seen increased investments in the electric distribution grid. This combination has generated expectations by regulatory authorities and customers alike for utilities to improve outage management. In response, utility executives are spending considerable time and money to improve outage planning, gain more value from infrastructure spend, reduce response times to events, and improve communications with customers.

ARC Advisory Group often attends the Offshore Technology Conference (OTC) held annually in early May down in Houston. This year, we found the mood and activity levels both surprisingly upbeat in light of the precipitous decline in oil prices over last ten months. The 28 percent decline in attendance from last year reflected the steep decline in capex across the sector.

PJM Interconnection, operator of the largest electric grid in the US, uses Esri ArcGIS geographical mapping software and the OSIsoft PI System's data capabilities to increase situational awareness for operators and improve business performance.

Detecting, reporting, and responding to abnormal situations or events are all important functional elements of a complete process automation strategy. Traditional control systems present this information in the form of alarms directed to the operations staff on the control system console. In abnormal situations, the volume of these alarms can present a present a significant challenge as operators are subjected to alarms floods or storms.

So, it actually happened. The United Kingdom has voted to exit the European Union ("Brexit"). This ARC Advisory Group Insight addresses the potential impacts this will have on automation markets in the UK, the EU, Switzerland, and elsewhere.

With the rapid growth of China's economy in recent decades, the country's automation market has grown to become the second largest in the world, just behind the US. Previously, many Chinese automation suppliers took advantage of this opportunity to increase their respective market shares in the country, often at the expense of their much larger multinational competitors.

Most managed transportation arrangements have successfully reduced freight spend for shippers while maintaining or improving service levels. This ARC Insight examines the benefits and risks of these arrangements and points out some of the practices that tend to improve the outcomes.

Excellent quality data has always been important to the US Food and Drug Administration because data integrity issues could lead to serious CGMP (current good manufacturing practices) violations. Dealing with poor data slows down FDA inspections and costs the agency, and ultimately the business, money. Unfortunately, data integrity issues are not uncommon, and enforcement in this area is increasing.