Industrial Transformation Blog

On September 9th and 10th of 2019, Operational Sustainability, LLC® held its second Operational Excellence (OE) Conference at the Norris Conference Center at City Centre here in Houston, Texas. Approximately 100 people attended, including partners and industry SMEs. Founder and CEO David Drerup opened the conference keynote with a renewed commitment to serving customers with their OESuite™ of intelligent, real-time decision support and risk management applications that integrate heretofore silos of multiple products. The company is celebrating its 10th year in business. OESuite focuses on the oil & gas, petrochemicals, chemicals, utilities, mining, water / wastewater, and food & beverage markets. They have more than 30 clients, some with 50+ sites.

In mid-September 2019, GE Digital (GED) held its reconstituted User Conference in Austin, Texas. Unlike past Minds & Machines mega-events, this event was smaller and more focused, with approximately 300+ attendees, of which 100 were GED, and the balance being 150+ customers and 45 channel partners from a variety of industries and global locations. GE Digital’s new CEO, Patrick Byrne, keynoted with a renewed commitment to serving customers with deep domain knowledge, long-time asset and process operating experience, digital solutions and services, and the ability to support customers globally. This message seemed well-received as many customers had previously voiced concerns about GE’s viability and continuity in the market.

LNS Research recently attended Oracle OpenWorld 2019 in San Francisco. One of the mega technology events for the Golden Gate City, the conference took over all three halls at the Moscone Center and had over 60,000 attendees.

Oracle is now over $40 billion in revenue (2018) with over 137,000 employees; it positions itself as the number one supplier of business software. The company is clearly innovating in many directions. The event covers the two sides of Oracle: Oracle, the technology, and Oracle, the applications vendor. Additionally, the firm has sophisticated positioning for “emerging technologies.” So, let’s examine each, and determine if this means Oracle can finally engage deeply in the plant.

Over the last decade, Siemens has gone through a massive transformation, not least in its software businesses. The current home for its comprehensive offerings is the Digital Industries Software (“Siemens”) division (a part of Digital Industries that includes discrete and process controls, automation, and drives). Siemens recently held its annual conference for media and analysts in New York where it brought us up to date on its impressive progress in software solutions. Announcements primarily related to how the company is bringing different parts of the portfolio together. We don’t perceive that as a lack of progress, but rather a demonstration of ever more sophisticated solutions around the Digital Twin.

In June, LNS Research attended Siemens' annual Americas user conference ― Automation Summit ― in Aurora, Colorado. This year the automation and digitalization vendor drew more than 700 attendees, including 400 customers and 100+ channel partners. Customers that attended represent diverse industry sectors such as hybrid manufacturing, specialty chemicals, packaging, glass, metals, and many others. The event boasted about 70 sessions, ranging from breakouts to keynotes, Tech Café demos, and an enormous amount of hardware on display ― we focused our time on:

We recently attended the annual Honeywell Users Group – Americas (HUG Americas or HUG) conference in Dallas, Texas. This year’s event drew more than 1,400 attendees, including 675 customers and 200+ channel partners. With some 150+ sessions, ranging from end-user break out presentations, technology solution presentations, workshop and/or training sessions, and roundtable discussions across multiple tracks, the four-day conference was chock-full of content. We had only one day to attend, so we focused on:

• Honeywell Connected Enterprise (HCE) versus Honeywell Connected Plant (HCP)
• Honeywell Forge
• Experion PKS Highly Integrated Virtual Environment (HIVE)

I had the pleasure of attending Rockwell Automation TechEd and PTC LiveWorx in back to back weeks last month. Both events generate a tremendous draw in the industry and set attendance records, however, it may be the last year that happens. There are rumors that 2020 will see a new co-located event; times are a-changing! Although there were differences in the themes, attendees, and presentation style, there was also much in common ― especially about a shared vision of Industrial Transformation and joint customer momentum.

We recently attended HxGN Live 2019, Hexagon’s annual digital solutions conference, in Las Vegas Nevada. Three thousand attendees were there to dive into nine different keynotes and over 500 sessions, many with hands-on training. The firm is a global leader in sensor, software, and autonomous solutions headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, with 2018 revenue reaching €3,760.7 million (approximately $4.234 billion USD). Its business includes industrial enterprise solutions with €1.941 million in revenue serving the electronics, manufacturing, energy and power, automotive, and aerospace and defense segments. They are known in the manufacturing world for 3D design and simulation technologies (predominantly for process assets), positioning and location identification mapping capabilities, metrology equipment, and an array of other sensors. The event included a bevy of new product launches across every major division of Hexagon.

ProcessMap held its customer conference in late May in Hollywood, FL.  The event — ProcessMAP Konnect 2019 — reminded us of the famous Forest Gump line, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”  This was the first time LNS Research participated in the environment, health, and safety (EHS) software vendor’s annual conference, so we had no preconceptions. ProcessMAP’s ecosystem of customers, partners, and experts gathered to discuss and collaborate on strategy, progress, best practices, solutions, and plans.

LNS Research was delighted to be invited again to Dassault Systèmes’ (3DS) annual get together for a small band of diverse industry analysts that cover a wide range of 3DS’ industries and technologies. Quite literally right out of the gate, 3DS surprised us on the bus to the event by announcing that Dassault Systèmes had acquired Medidata Solutions, Inc. for $5.8 billion.