June 2015
37
I
NTERNET
-O
F
-T
HINGS
– S
MART
I
NDUSTRY
ous improvements at scale - even smaller
outcomes such as 1% reduced downtime on
critical equipment - can drive big changes in
performance and operating margin.
Industrial Internet-enabled solutions are
changing the game for industrial companies.
ey’re enabling businesses to leverage big
data to drive performance optimization in
their current operations. ey’re also enabling
predictive analytics so businesses can take a
proactive approach to minimize unplanned
downtime. By connecting machines and
industrial big data, the Industrial Internet
enables companies to better understand their
operations.
ey can visualize how their
assets and processes are behaving in real time
and what events occurred. What’s more, those
companies can drive operations to their full-
est potential based on key parameters such
as market demand, weather conditions, plant
environment, load balancing, and other busi-
ness objectives.
A mining company, for example, might need
better visibility into its complex production
processes to achieve optimal control of oper-
ations. Solutions powered by the Industrial
Internet can, for instance, help monitor pro-
cesses and control loops. So when a control
loop is insu cient, it is possible to quickly
identify what has changed and why, and get
to the root cause of the issue to gain better
insight into process and control problems to
minimize deviations outside set parameters.
e result: greater consistency, process opti-
mization, and safe production.
What’s more, to capture the full potential
of optimization, a company not only needs
to understand the current state of its opera-
tions, but also have the ability to predict what
will happen before it does. While industrial
machines have always issued early warn-
ings, it was in an inconsistent way and in a
manner where details o en crowded out the
most critical information.
e advent of net-
worked machines with embedded sensors
and advanced analytics tools has changed that
reality. Now it is possible to leverage advanced
analytics in context to predict, providing
real-time operational intelligence to the peo-
ple who need it to make the best decisions.
us, companies have intelligent foresight to
take appropriate action and proactively avoid
issues before they occur - a powerful capabil-
ity that allows for continuous operation.
Let’s go back to that oil and gas company
example. A lube oil cooler fails on an o shore
oil platform, a pump can fail, or trip o ine.
An Industrial Internet-enabled solution can
provide powerful analysis so a problem can
be identi ed such as high water content in the
oil cooler before a failure occurs. And then
communicate to the right people in the right
place at the right time the need to inspect the
pump, avoiding downtime and costly long-
term damage to the bearings.
To help companies take the Industrial Inter-
net journey, GE has developed what it calls
the Industrial Internet Maturity Model. It is
designed to help assess where an organization
falls on the spectrum of expected maturity or
capabilities within the Industrial Internet and
discover the best solution pathway to achieve
its business priorities. Based on a series of
progressive questions, this model provides
a personalized high-level view of an organi-
zation current state and recommends a solid
solution roadmap. It reveals areas that have
not reached their full potential and highlights
where an organization aspires to be within the
journey. Business priorities are also aligned
with the model results, thus targeting the
right business solutions in support of achiev-
ing that Industrial Internet-inspired vision of
a company.
ere are ve key steps in the model that build
on each other to help reach performance
optimization. 1) Connect: provides the foun-
dation to connect machines and enables the
collection of data from assets and processes
as well as management of that data to derive
value. 2) Monitor: focuses on helping a com-
pany understand the performance of assets
and processes, and visualize what events are
happening. 3) Analyze: helps determine the
root cause of issues based on historical and
real-time data to enable an understanding of
relationships, correlations, and trends, and to
enable e ective troubleshooting of problems.
4) Predict: focuses on providing foresight into
impending problems so issues can be avoided
before they occur and drive greater process
consistency and asset uptime. 5) Optimize:
maximizes the performance potential of
assets and processes to achieve a company’s
desired outcomes and leverage the bene ts of
the Industrial Internet.
e value of the Industrial Internet Matu-
rity Model is that it provides a solid solution
path towards optimization.
e assessment
can be done across various levels - from core
assets and adjacent assets, to across a facil-
ity and enterprise. A company can under-
stand where its business is today in terms of
adopting the Industrial Internet and deter-
mine where it wants to be in the future. And
hence, that company can align the steps it’s
going to take with solutions that help meet
the business objectives it has. Ultimately, the
Industrial Internet allows organizations to
combine brilliant machines with best-in-class
analytics to deliver valuable new insights that
were never before possible.
e results of
these powerful analytic insights can be rev-
olutionary, enabling a business to: 1) Avoid
unplanned downtime with insight into the
equipment function down to the compo-
nent level with machine sensors and big data
analytics, which allow proactive action to be
taken for continuous operation. 2) Maximize
pro tability by managing equipment assets
with insights from big data analytics, which
enables increased uptime, production, e -
ciency, and throughput. Using analytics for
operational e ciencies can drive even greater
pro tability for industrial machines. 3) Trans-
form a company’s technology infrastructure
by leveraging advances in big data analytics,
mobility, data visualization and cloud com-
puting, which changes the operating land-
scape of today’s industrial companies and
creates pro t opportunities.
GE believes the Industrial Internet unlocks
new possibilities and drives transformation by
connecting brilliant machines, advanced ana-
lytics, and people at work. With the power of
the Industrial Internet at work, we’re already
seeing an impact on industry. And without
doubt, early adopters will position themselves
to reap rst-mover competitive advantage.
Forward-looking companies have begun to
embrace the Industrial Internet to drive new
performance highs and generate value like
never before.
ey’re leveraging connectivity
and analytics to achieve their business pri-
orities - whether it’s increasing throughput,
improving product quality, driving resource
e ciency, shortening response times or other
valuable outcomes.
e Industrial Internet is
a journey - one that can lead businesses to a
new wave of productivity gains and perfor-
mance optimization. And it has meaningful
implications for us all.
n
Product News
n
ADLINK: COM Express basic Size Type 6
COM with AMD Embedded R-Series APU
ADLINK introduced the Express-BE, a
COM Express Basic Size Type 6 comput-
er-on-module based on the 2nd generation
AMD Embedded R-Series APU (Acceler-
ated Processing Unit, which combines the
CPU & GPU on a single System-on-Chip,
or SOC) with A77E FCH, delivering power
e ciency and high de nition visuals to
high-performance medical imaging appli-
cations.
e Express-BE with AMD R-Se-
ries APU supports up to four independent
displays—at mid-power range (17W~37W)
and with resolutions of up to 4k x 2k @ 30
Hz—from a single system driving multi-
ple screens without the need for a discrete
graphics card.
