The Digital Transformation Challenges for Industrial Operating Companies
Global competition is driving the adoption of Industry 4.0 (smart manufacturing, digital supply networks, connected devices, predictive analytics and deep learning). However, most industrial environments have evolved over many years with custom integrations across disparate, industrial control systems and machines. At the same time, rogue and nation-state hackers are increasingly focusing their efforts on industrial sites. Driven by the criticality and risks connected with running a modern industrial plant, these environments have traditionally been isolated or air-gapped from Internet access, however the airgap is quickly disappearing.
Reasons Why Industrial IoT and Digital Transformation Projects are Stalling or Failing
According to Cisco and industry analysts more than 70% of industrial IoT and digital transformations projects are failing. The three main reasons are:
- Security: Errors and oversights with identity authentication, authorization, data transport, data encryption and physical security.
- Complexity: New digital architecture, comprising myriad connectivity technologies, devices and applications, and an array of new management platforms to orchestrate proceedings require expertise and knowledge.
- Interoperability: Every machine, every sensor is talking a proprietary language. The data has to be normalized across all of these different protocols.
Continuous Transformation
Digital Transformation is not a once off activity, it is the way to run an Industrial Operating Company in the 21st century. It requires the rapid identification, testing and deployment of best-of-breed data & analytics solutions to where they can create the most value within your organization be it the plant, the field or the factory. Those best-of-breed solutions, may come from your current ecosystem of vendors, but its just as likely they will come from a young startup that has figured out how to creatively use your data to improve productivity beyond what is possible with your vendors.
The Key to Cloud Technologies
The adoption of cloud-based Industrial IoT applications, that leverage advanced analytics and AI to improve performance and productivity is accelerating, creating new challenges for IT and OT professionals. Secure trusted access between those cloud-based applications and operational systems in industrial plants that feed the necessary sensor data is rapidly becoming critical component of the modern industrial plant.
Accelerating Industrial Digital Transformation
EOT enables industrial operating companies to leverage the power of cloud-based data analytics, machine learning and AI by tapping into the unrealized value hidden within their operational data by brokering trusted access between cloud-based applications and operational data sources in industrial verticals such as oil & gas, manufacturing and energy.
Condition monitoring: EOT is key for cloud-based monitoring parameters of conditions in machinery (vibration, temperature etc.), in order to identify a significant change which is indicative of a developing fault.
Predictive Maintenance: EOT is designed to enable cloud-based applications to determine the condition of in-service equipment in order to predict when maintenance should be performed. This approach promises cost savings over routine or time-based maintenance.
Process Optimization: EOT enables cloud technologies to adjusting industrial processes so as to optimize some specified set of parameters without violating some constraint with the goal are to minimize cost and maximize throughput and/or efficiency.
Demand forecasting: EOT helps cloud-based predictive analytics applications to use operational data to forecast raw material requirements for production, and predict future customer buying habits to optimize inventory levels while meeting customer expectations.
Energy Management: EOT provides real-time data cloud-based machine learning and Artificial Intelligence applications responsible for planning and operation of energy production and energy consumption units to optimize resource conservation, climate protection and cost savings.