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.

Companies can now measure almost every single aspect of business activity due to various analytic tools and management software. Often, they have advanced datasets to explore their performance because there are so many metrics to measure.

While navigating various datasets, anything outside the norm would be considered an anomaly. Different anomalies can have an enormous impact on business decisions, operational results, and management’s ability to respond rapidly and accurately.

You may assume a cloud-based SCADA platform is just another operational system like all the others. After you utilize data visualization tools and cloud applications embedded in Emerson's Zedi Cloud Platform you realize you can turn your data into knowledge for faster and better business decisions.

That is what advanced analytics is all about! It's getting that next level of analytics from your remotely located assets and using that data to help you quickly turn knowledge into wisdom; or actual decision making data, and in some cases, actually driving the decisions to be made autonomously based on the historical data and what the machine can learn from how things were previously corrected so many times before; so you, and your people can focus your day on your core business.

Efficiency and profitability are the top reasons for so many operators to take advantage of Emerson’s Zedi Autonomous Rod Pump Management. Using autonomous operations to solve pump issues, boost oil and gas production and reduce operational and work-over costs give you tens of thousands of reasons ($$$$) to join the rush. It’s a key part of any well planned digital transformation strategy.

But just as important on the investor side can be its safety benefits—and those gains take a little more digging to find, but once you see them and the positive impact it makes on ESG factors you'll wish you had them years ago.

Monitoring and controlling the traditional pump jacks you see bowing and rising along oilfield roads has some limitations. But today, through digital transformation, we’re using data to improve management of all wells, including the rod-pumped variety

A flowing well with a low gas-to-oil ratio needs little hands-on management, but you still need to track production and watch for pump failures or rod parts. Remote monitoring removes the need for a pumper to visually inspect the site daily—and it removes the chances that the well could break down right after he drives away, leaving it unproductive for a day or so.

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.

Complexity though, can be really great for your bottom line.

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 Zedi IIoT platform 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.

In World Oil's article, "What's New in Artificial Lift?", I outlined key features and benefits of the TCB Manufacturing SilverJack system. The SilverJack artificial lift system is a unique combination of a surface hydraulic lift solution with a powerful integrated controller combined with Emerson's Zedi web-based, cloud-native IIoT platform data collection, management, and control system that provides the capability to remotely detect and resolve many common problems encountered with conventional downhole rod pumping equipment.