Most of us have experienced significant changes throughout our careers, and life. Some of those changes have certainly gone smoother, and had significantly better outcomes than others - the single constant about life in our world today is change itself. Which makes it crucial to understand all the pieces that are part of any change to have well aligned to make any change a great experience that provides positive outcomes and enable you, and your organization to thrive.

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.

We've all been there - called a support number for a product or service and got to the point where you know for a fact your blood pressure is at a boiling point because not only did the person not answer your question with anything but what was on their 'script' in front of them, but made YOU jump through all their hoops before giving you that scripted, and completely useless response. To say this is 'infuriating' is a giant understatement, and makes you lose faith in all humanity because it seems no one can think for themselves or get the slightest bit creative on what might help you in your time of need.

Thankfully, some people, and companies actually get what the word 'support' means and take the right steps to enable their people to understand what their products can 'do'. Those same, very carefully chosen people that are placed in support roles hold a strong desire to help their customers and are willing to be relentless in how they discover ways to help solve problems. Those rare people are the one's that aren't afraid to put ideas into action and are even exceptionally polite about it through the process. Imagine that - Faith in humanity saved in a single, easy, helpful, dare I even say enjoyable phone call.

Many people enjoy knowing every little detail about something, even if it doesn't really correlate directly to them. All the power to them! Personally, I like people to get right to the point; tell me what I need to know - Don't dance around what you're trying to say, or give me so much info it makes my head spin.

Please, please, please just be clear and concise.

I'm pretty sure companies and their staff also want their data straightforward and easy to understand. Not such a large amount of data that drowns them with every tiny detail that isn't relevant, or actionable. Sometimes too much data can become pretty much useless because it would take you hours to filter through it all to find the data you actually do need.

I think it's safe to safe that many of us have experienced different times in our lives that we knew we didn't have all the information; times when we simply knew there was more to the story, or something missing that we should know in order to make an informed decision. Some people call it intuition, others say it's a 'hunch' - call it whatever you like, but either way having that feeling is certainly frustrating at best; potentially even life-threatening at worst.

When it comes to your operations, I hope you don't get that feeling very often - But if you do then we can help.

Municipal gas distribution systems require a delicate balance—keep the natural gas flowing in just the right amounts. If there’s too little, or none, people don’t get something the really need. The heater won’t run, they can't cook, the clothes dryer won't work; you know the consequences.

But too much is also a problem, one which can have massively dangerous consequences—especially if it’s natural gas! But there are thousands of people turning natural gas on and off across, in larger cities, dozens of square miles. Knowing how to manage pressures and flow rates is critical to people. Or when there is an over-pressure situation, being aware of it, and having the ability to quickly detect it and fix it before it gets out of hand can be life-saving.

The stories of budget struggles for municipal water systems seem to grow every week. Overwhelming residential growth on one side, countered by budget-constrained neglect of systems on the other side, plague many small to medium towns. One way to maximize the budgets these communities do have is through efficient remote monitoring and alarming systems that are IIoT based.

The cost of distractions in life is high. What can often seem like a minor distraction can have a giant impact on life; a distracted drive to work could cause a crash, distracted while reading email could cause you to miss an important request from the boss, or being distracted while spending time with family could result in a loved one that doesn’t feel heard anymore, or think you care.

When it comes to your operations distractions can cause just as much havoc and loss. Distractions cause the risk of safety of people; and the environments around you, and the health of the bottom line. Those distractions could be losing your organization hundreds of thousands of dollars. Without your eye on the prize you could be risking the sustainability of your organization; here today - gone tomorrow happens all too often these days.

While most oil and gas production is somewhat remote from the office, offshore sites are much more distant. Instead of driving a hundred miles or so in a company truck, your management and production staff are helicoptering across gulfs, seas and oceans to stay at least a couple of days before flying back—at great expense, and safety risk.

There are indeed times when that has to happen. But those times can stay few and far between with reliable, fast, cloud-native production data provided by Emerson in the Zedi IIoT platform that's complete with SaaS and a mobile app.

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.