You may have oil and gas production sites scattered from the mountains to the prairies, to the oceans and offshore in the beautiful, but super remote seas around the globe. Collecting and consolidating that remotely located data is one thing—pushing it back out to your varied end-users in an actionable and analyzed format may be a whole, more complicated other story.

Imagine you were a spy... Not the creepy kind of spy, but you know the James Bond type of spy; the super-slick, ultra-cool, well-spoken, always well-dressed and never gets caught kind of spy. I can imagine if offshore oil and gas production had a spy it would look and act like Emerson's Zedi™ SaaS platform. Minus of course all the fast cars, fancy dates and danger. But we can get you all the detailed information of what exactly is happening so far away - without disrupting what's actually going on; so it's spy-like, without all the showbiz-glitz, creepiness, or glam price-tags.

Our software and IIoT platform enables operators to improve processes, enhance investments and maximize returns on their assets as they lean into an autonomous operation. A recent example of this includes how our experts have developed one solution to assist your operations in optimizing rod pumps using AI (artificial intelligence): Emerson's Zedi Autonomous Rod Pump Management.

"There is no life without water."

 - Albert Szent-Gyorgyi, Nobel Prize-winning biochemist

Municipal water utilities have one of the most important—and unappreciated—tasks in civilization. They bring water to citizens located far from rivers or streams; located instead in apartment buildings, houses and businesses along city streets and highways.

There is indeed, “no life without water.” But to be useful, that water has to be stored, distributed when needed, and contained. For most organizations today, whether commercial or municipal, there is no industrial life without data. But that data must be available, understandable and actionable. It’s amazing to learn that more than 50% of businesses (and this could include municipalities as well) have more data than they have the data analytics capacity to handle or analyze effectively.

When you’re watching a great movie it absorbs you into the story, the action and the characters. It's probably not a great movie if you find yourself thinking about other things like; “How did they get that camera angle?” Or “These are really strange sound effects" or even worse "Did I put the laundry in the dryer?" 

There’s a strong correlation between the movie production mechanics and your operations. On your computer or smart device, you want just to see the data from local and remote locations—production, measurements, down time, machine health, maintenance schedules, utility costs—or whatever, as long as it's data you can action upon to help you increase your production, safety, profits or sustainability. You don’t want to fumble around with reporting, why you’re not getting data from the sensors in the compressor, or what happened to last month’s figures. If your current system causes you to do that, you’re ready for a change.

When the real estate market is booming, home buyers will fight for virtually any house that hits the market. It's nice for sellers while it's happening, but eventually, the buyers who chose the best location will hold the properties with the greatest value. Of course there is much more to factor into your decision before committing yourself to a purchase that large; you probably have poured over the area data to see what the crime rate is, how the schools are, what the resale market holds, how far it is to conveniences, how close the neighbors are (or are not), etc...

Predicting long-term market value of anything isn't easy, but there are some tell-tale things to look for before you sign the dotted line that can help give you insight into the long-range value. The most important is of course all that data you can find today, on just about anything!

Operational data can be very messy and often times lives in many different places: internal systems, spreadsheets, email messages, hand written notes, even mental notes, and more. You need a way to manage all this information so it's available to you and your authorized users at any time for any reason.

By pooling all your operations data together into a cloud-based platform and utilizing cloud applications, you can simplify and cut down on the number of systems you need to support your operations. We've all heard the saying 'sometimes more is less' right? It totally proves true when it comes to your operational data; simplify where it's all combined and stored to get the most from it all.

Alarms can be used to monitor data for anything out of the ordinary, like catching smalls deviations and alerting an operator to a possible situation before it escalates. Setting up alarms on your assets enables you to prevent physical and economic loss through faster operator intervention and response times.

How many alarms can an operator effectively handle per day? ISA 18.2 states that, ideally, one alarm per 10 minutes can be taken care of without sacrifice to the operator’s other duties. Two alarms per 10 minutes are identified as manageable.

“Baby, It’s Cold Outside” doesn’t begin to describe winters in Wyoming, Alberta and many other parts of the world. Winter lows average well below zero, whatever scale you’re using. It’s why detailed training, safety, planning and teamwork are literally life-and-death issues as we help keep water, wastewater, gas distribution, and of course oil and gas production flowing - in even the coldest, and hottest areas of the globe.

Ask anyone that works outside in temps around 110 degrees in the complete dust and heat of summer in the Texas, or well below zero in Canada - no one leaves the yard without extensive training, preparation, and a carefully checked list, but there are still many, many safety risks to consider before venturing out.

The water management industry is an asset concentrated, rate-restricted industry requiring informed decision-making to effectively  balance increased safety with capital investment and operational expenses. Capital resources for the water industries can make it difficult to meet on-going challenges like aging infrastructure, declining revenues, retiring experienced workers, and regulations.

One way water companies can face these challenges is to find effective ways to utilize their current assets to increase return on investment and increase safety. Digitally transforming operations will rely on better use of existing data coupled with new sensors, information integration, and data analytics.