Revisiting the Black Box

One of the questions that LNS Research often gets is how to explain Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) not only to plant personnel, but also to operating management, in such a way so that they can understand them sufficiently to place a reasonable degree of trust in them. In other words, enough to allow their adoption for predictive maintenance and other data science-based applications.

In previous blogs and articles, I have written about the new “OT Ecosystem.” Over the past few months I had a chance to observe what’s happening in the market with a number of automation and software vendors, so I thought this would be a good time to revisit the OT Ecosystem, delve deeper into what it is and what it means, and why it is important.

It’s been 10 months since GE Digital appointed new CEO Patrick Byrne. In our last blog, after their September 2019 User Group meeting, we said, “GE Digital has re-emerged with renewed focus led by fresh, engineering-grounded, no-nonsense leadership in Pat Byrne. We look forward to seeing if this new positive momentum is sustainable.” So what’s happened since then? Let’s take a look under the hood and see what Pat and his team have been doing. 

"THESE are the times that try men's souls." With all that's happening today in the world, from the coronavirus pandemic to the Saudi-Russian oil price war, to the continuing threat of cyber attacks, Thomas Paine's words seem appropriate. How should we, particularly those of us in industry, put this situation in perspective, and what should we be doing about it?

In my new ebook, “Asset Performance Management and Risk Management,” I argue the case for a more comprehensive approach to Asset Performance Management (APM) that goes beyond reliability. In particular, I stress that reliability is not just about maintaining mechanical and process integrity for the sake of plant performance, but is, in fact, integral to Environmental, Health & Safety (EHS), Operational Excellence (OE), overall risk management extending to sustainable and responsible operations. LNS research into what makes companies Industrial Transformation (IX) leaders, those companies that we call IX Exemplars, reveals four key characteristics

Every year LNS Research puts forth predictions around the key trends in the Industrial Transformation (IX) topics where we focus our research. In the case of asset performance management (APM), our 2019 forecast focused on the impact of Digital Twins on a company’s strategy, go-to-market, business models, and on the direction of process automation.

Every year LNS Research puts forth predictions around the key trends in the Industrial Transformation (IX) topics where we focus our research. In the case of asset performance management (APM), our 2019 forecast focused on the impact of Digital Twins on a company’s strategy, go-to-market, business models, and on the direction of process automation.

This year’s AVEVA World 2019 North America users conference was held in Orlando with over 1100 customer and partner attendees from a diverse set of industries plus 300 from AVEVA. The conference was kicked off by Steen Lomholt-Thomsen, Chief Revenue Officer, who introduced Christine Harding, the new Head of the Americas. Lomholt-Thomsen’s opening keynote highlighted AVEVA’s renewed focus on their core industries – oil and gas, chemicals, F&B, Smart Cities – and customers are successfully expanding across the applications portfolio – starting with MES and moving to APM as highlighted on stage as well as with examples from AVEVA clients. Guest keynotes from Lisa Bodell, CEO of FutureThink who spoke about the workplace complexity that is killing organizations' ability to be agile, fast and innovative, and Keller Rinaudo, whose company Zipline uses autonomous drones to deliver medical supplies in war-torn 3rd world countries, also set an encouraging tone for the conference.

This year’s Bentley Systems “Year in Infrastructure“ users conference was held in Singapore with over 1,400 attendees from 45 countries, including Bentley staff and about 130 media and analysts from 25 countries. This year’s theme was Advancing BIM through Digital Twins. No matter where you went, the message was digital twins, twins, and more twins across the entire asset lifecycle and every industry segment from roads, bridges, and buildings to transportation, utilities, and the process industry. BIM stands for Building Information Modeling, but isn’t just for buildings, but for all physical structures and assets as they are planned, designed, constructed, operated and maintained. Digital twins are digital representations of physical assets and their engineering information that allow users to understand and model their performance in the real world over their lifecycle. In effect, Bentley says “evergreen” digital twins advance BIM and GIS through 4D.

Siemens announced on September 16, 2019 that they have agreed to acquire Process Systems Enterprise (PSE) according to Eckard Eberle, CEO of Business Unit Process Automation. Siemens plans to purchase 100 percent of the share capital of PSE and to integrate its business into the Business Unit Process Automation, which is part of Siemens Digital Industries. Siemens has now followed through on their June 2018 long-term collaboration agreement to bring the power of PSE’s gPROMS APM technology to Siemens automation and digitalization offerings for the process industries. Under the original agreement, the companies promised to bring to market a new set of solutions for long-term equipment and health monitoring, soft-sensing, prediction of future process performance, real-time optimization, and operator training incorporating high-fidelity models. The agreement aimed to extend Siemens’ capabilities in the process industries and would result in the close linkage of Comos, Simatic PCS 7 and Simit with PSE’s gPROMS.