Unlimited operational visibility is transforming industry

Written by Jeremy Wilbert, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, AVEVA

Dispatches from AVEVA World 2023

After working with enterprises all over the world to give them unlimited operational visibility, I was excited to hear how it’s paying off for them at AVEVA’s yearly global user conference. And they didn’t disappoint. I got to hear how organizations from all sorts of industries are increasing efficiency and profits and becoming more sustainable—just by getting the data they already have to the right people. Here are just a couple stories that stuck out for me.

Mobile data access at Qatar Foundation’s Education City

One area I’ve been most excited about is how industrial staff are getting the same level of mobile access to their work information that they already enjoy for all the info they use in their personal lives. We can now give every staff member complete access to the information they need—on any device they want to use. They can even personally tailor how they access and experience information on those devices by using single sign-on (SSO) and authentication practices.

At AVEVA World, I heard how mobile access is paying off for Qatar Foundation’s Education City. Education City is a 12 km2 campus with more than 45 buildings, including educational, medical, recreational and industrial facilities. It deployed AVEVA™ Operations Control to centralize the control of all those facilities—and give operators comprehensive access to operational data from across the campus.

Late one night in August, an operator got a message on his cell phone that the flow through one of the water meters was too high. He pulled up a real-time report and saw that the flow rate was 84 m3/hr—more than double what it should be. So, he contacted local operators and got them to fix the leak within one hour.

Before Education City had this mobile data access, operators only discovered night-time water leaks the morning after—when they showed up to a pool of water on the ground. Not only would they have wasted water, but they’d have to spend extra time, energy and money draining it away. Mobile data access is saving all those resources for them. In fact, Georgios Sichanis, the Senior Project Manager for Qatar Foundation, let us know that Education City’s improved visibility and access to information has reduced its energy consumption by 5.5%.

It was gratifying to see how simple mobile access to data is helping to fix problems more efficiently—as well as preventing problems from happening in the first place.

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Data sharing at Maple Leaf Foods

Another very exciting use of operational visibility I heard about at AVEVA World came from Maple Leaf Foods , Canada’s largest prepared meats and poultry producer. It’s taking data from AVEVA™ Manufacturing Execution System (MES) at one of its largest plants and sending it to Braincube for data analysis, which has significantly increased its yield.

Cygnus consulting, an AVEVA Certified MES Systems Integrator, helped Maple Leaf Foods take the process data from its existing AVEVA™ Manufacturing Execution System, supplement it with just a few internet of things (IoT) sensors, and forward it on in the cloud to Braincube for AI data analysis.

Braincube pulls data from the plant every ten minutes, analyzes it, and uses it to perfect parameter settings for each machine, on each line, every day. It takes in data from 150 tags on each individual machine and uses it to make adjustments as fine as .05mm on equipment such as deli-meat slicing machines. Those minute adjustments help to compensate for slight changes from wear on each individual machine, which both optimizes each machine’s yield and also prolongs the life of the machine itself.

As a result, Maple Leaf Foods is getting a 10-12% gross increase in profit from the lines that share data with Braincube. Andy Thorne, the I.S. Architect for Manufacturing Execution Systems at Maple Leaf Foods, told those of us attending his presentation that that’s just his conservative estimate. He said the company saw an ROI from the project in just 3 months.

The power of visibility

It was inspiring to hear from these organizations and others at AVEVA World 2023. They showed how connecting the right people with the right data opens up a whole world of opportunities to vastly increase efficiency, sustainability and profit. If you’re as excited as I am about the results these organizations are getting, check out some of the other presentations from AVEVA World from companies that are digitally connecting their workforce and going beyond traditional HMI/SCADA with AVEVA Operations Control.