Keeping your operations continuously running smoothly is no small task; but especially if it involves remotely located assets that are hundreds, even thousands of miles from where you work on a daily basis. You don't have the same amount of talented skilled people to be sending them all over the countryside for no good reason anymore. You need to know exactly what's going on, and where before you can even think about scheduling one of your valuable resources to hit the road, jump on a flight or work all that overtime to get to the asset in need.

“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.

In the past few years, as oil and gas prices began to drop and investment capital dried up, ‘business-as-usual’ models began to die a painful death for those companies that did not have a targeted digital transformation goal, or (at least) a strong eye on the prize with an actionable plan already in place.

The digital transformation journey can look very different for each company depending on what (if anything) you already have in place; but there are some pretty easy; highly effective and easy wins you can score right out of the gate.

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.

In every industry, there's always room for improvement. More industries are looking to find the right data to make better business decisions and keep people and assets safer through automation and to find solutions that can change all areas of their operations for the better.

Water and wastewater treatment plants depend upon remote facilities' reliable and safe operation to continuously move waste throughout the service area to the main stations. By implementing a solution like Emerson's DeltaV™ SaaS SCADA, many parts of managing and controlling remote sites not only become more streamlined, safer and cost effective but also more sustainable for the communities they serve.

Water management companies can make major safety and control gains with Emerson's DeltaV SaaS SCADA that quickly and accurately compiles data from any digital monitoring hardware via gateways that support a variety of protocols.

We provide end-users with a web interface as well as the ability to push data to third-party platforms, allowing remote control and optimization via cloud-based data access.

Leveraging the flexibility of a cloud-native IIoT SaaS SCADA platform enables you to capture unlimited amounts of data from any digital monitoring hardware and transmit it quickly to the appropriate personnel so they can access and analyze the data in real-time to make faster, more informed decisions.

Way, way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, I had a very annoying flip phone that was really only able to make and receive calls and (upon the rare occasion) get and send a few random text messages from other techie types. The main reason I found this phone so annoying is I wanted it to be able to do so much more; and it seemed like it shouldn't be all that difficult to make it happen.

But, that's all there was on the market at the time.

I continuously wondered why on earth someone didn't make them to fetch my email, or have a decent camera in them. Then it finally became a reality and just like that we all became more mobile than we had ever dreamed of being! It was AWESOME being set free from waiting for an email, and unchained from my desk where I would often be found waiting for information to be sent.

Things used to be so much simpler. Every home had one phone line. Every store took cash or checks, and almost every well had a rod pump over its whole life span. Then again, everything used to be way more work to 'do' anything at all; pump oil, or just grocery shop.

Complexity though, can be really great for your bottom line, and doesn't have to feel complex.

With cell phones, we can call for help from just about anywhere. Debit cards are way faster than check writing. And using a series of unconventional lifting methods on unconventional wells is unlocking much stronger potential for oil and gas production—and profitability that we could only dream of a few short years ago.

If you like to grow plants, you know that there are three main things they require for growth: water, sunshine and good soil. If you supply all these, your plants will grow healthy and strong, putting out new leaves and colorful blossoms in their season.

I feel exactly that way about our DeltaV SaaS SCADA growth. We’ve expanded organically by identifying and supplying the top three things our customers need for better production. Much like water, sunshine and good soil without any one of these the chances of growth drops quickly.

If automation for you conjures up images of complexity along the lines of The Matrix or other elaborate theory, I have some good news. It doesn’t have to be that complicated.

As an example, I love looking at all the ways the actual data from creating automation can improve the bottom line and generally make life simpler. Or the way something simple like automating tank levels with alarms can actually save lives - the possibilities are endlessly beneficial, but not nearly as complex as you may think (or have to worry about anyway).