Zedi News | Platform

Emerson Named ‘Industrial IoT Company of the Year’ for Fifth Time

Posted by Community Contributor on Feb 10, 2023 1:47:38 PM

Award recognizes Emerson’s leading global industrial software and IoT expertise provided through the power of Plantweb with AspenTech.

IoT Breakthrough Award

ST. LOUIS (Jan. 12, 2023) — Global technology and software company Emerson (NYSE: EMR) has been named the IoT Breakthrough 2023 “Industrial IoT Company of the Year” for the fifth time — an honor the company also received in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022. This year’s award recognizes the power of Emerson’s industry-leading Plantweb™ digital ecosystem, which now includes the AspenTech (NASDAQ: AZPN) suite of plant optimization software solutions.

Leveraging decades of innovation and expertise, Emerson delivers the broadest suite of automation technology to manufacturers across all industries. Emerson and AspenTech’s leading portfolio of sensor, edge, control and software solutions – the Plantweb digital ecosystem – enables companies to optimize operations and performance of their plants and enterprise.

“Emerson is proud to be consistently recognized as an automation leader with a demonstrated commitment to innovating and providing leading solutions that help customers meet their business and sustainability goals in today’s dynamic markets,” said Ram Krishnan, chief operating officer of Emerson. “By integrating AspenTech into our industry-leading Plantweb digital ecosystem, we provide customers the most comprehensive digital transformation portfolio in the industry, backed by deep automation expertise.”

Plantweb, including the AspenTech portfolio of asset optimization software, enables companies to “See, Decide, Act and Optimize” across their operations. Through its sensing and visualization, predictive diagnostics and monitoring, precision control and AI-powered analytics, Plantweb empowers companies to boost performance, improve safety and achieve sustainability targets through emissions reduction and greater energy efficiency.

“Emerson continues its decades-long streak of digital innovation and leadership across all automation categories, and the company’s breakthrough Plantweb digital ecosystem, optimized with AspenTech, represents a next-generation IIoT platform to help their customers optimize operations and meet business and sustainability goals,“ said James Johnson, managing director at IoT Breakthrough. “Emerson’s robust suite of sensors, software and control technologies are empowering organizations to ‘See, Decide, Act and Optimize’ like never before, and we are thrilled to congratulate the Emerson team for taking home our marquee ‘Industrial IoT Company of the Year’ award in the 7th annual IoT Breakthrough Awards program.”

IoT Breakthrough, which recognizes excellence, creativity and success of Internet of Things (IoT) companies, technologies and products, received more than 4,000 nominations for the 2023 competition. The awards honor the world’s best companies, leaders, technologies and products in a range of IoT categories — from industrial and enterprise, to consumer and connected home. Winners are selected by a panel of senior-level professionals experienced in the IoT space, including journalists, analysts and technology executives.

For more information on Emerson’s automation solutions, please visit Emerson.com.

Media:
• Contacts: Emerson Automation Solutions Global Media Contacts

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About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR) is a global technology and software company providing innovative solutions for the world’s essential industries. Through its leading automation portfolio, including its majority stake in AspenTech, Emerson helps hybrid, process and discrete manufacturers optimize operations, protect personnel, reduce emissions and achieve their sustainability goals. For more information, visit Emerson.com.

Oil and gas producer pumps up operations with SCADA

Posted by Community Contributor on Nov 3, 2022 10:14:02 AM

Competitive M&A advantages enabled by an “Operation by Exception” methodology and SCADA implementation.

Control Magazine

Len Vermillion

Canvas Energy, an Oklahoma City-based independent oil and gas producer with operations in the oil and liquids-rich portion of the Anadarko Basin in Oklahoma, has a future vision it calls “Operation by Exception (OBE).” Over the last decade, a key component of its successful operation, particularly in a business with a need to be flexible to the ups and downs of the oil market, is its supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA, system.

Getting through its digital transformation to where its automated processes and data usage are today has been a journey, according to Kylie Odorisio, production engineer at Canvas, who was on hand at this week’s Emerson Exchange to discuss its transformation.

“We started looking at SCADA just under 10 years ago. Our first question was that we always had a flat infrastructure system. So being able to integrate different data sources and being able to bolt-on different platforms was our first-step mission,” Odorisio told the audience.

The company, working with Emerson’s Zedi SaaS SCADA unit and Emerson impact partner Vinson Process Controls, started its journey with tank-level monitoring, tank-level alarm and artificial lift, real-time pressure monitoring, to name a few projects. Odorisio said the ultimate goal of the digital transformation was to “empower our employees to make correct decisions,” which is the basis of the company’s OBE strategy.

That entails both field-level transformation and office-level transformation, according to Odorisio. At the field-level, it’s about using the data to provide successful operational improvements. At the office-level it is centered on creating aggregated KPIs that can be further digested into trends and patterns for making strategic business decisions.

Key to success

The company needed to satisfy three key areas in its digital transformation. It needed its operation to be proactive. It needed to be able to leverage multi-disciplined personnel, and it needed to be scalable for further mergers and acquisition, a point vital to a capital-aggressive company such as Canvas. To get there it needed a long-term technology partner, according to Emerson’s Adin Nand, director of business development for Zedi Saas SCADA. Nand and Jared Frederickson, business unit leader for digital transformation at Vinson Process Controls, both joined Odorisio during the presentation.

“During our initial meeting with Canvas, they sort of stopped us and said, ‘We have a vision. We don’t know exactly how we are going to get there, but we want a long-term partner to help us figure it out,’” Nand said. “Obviously, we said, ‘Let’s do this.’”

Frederickson added that his company’s domain space expertise—it has worked with Canvas since 2014 and in oil and gas for quite longer—was another difference maker. He also pointed to Emerson’s extensive technology stack as the clincher.

“We can bring Emerson’s entire portfolio in and leverage it to the Canvas operation-by-exception platform,” he said.

Frederickson added the transformation centered on reaching near autonomous operations that would be driven by outcomes. A stack of Rosemount wireless sensors, Vinson’s ProductionManager Edge and cloud analytics via Emerson Zedi SaaS SCADA, allowed the companies to apply several machine learning and artificial intelligence tactics to achieve success.

Up to the task

One of the biggest aspects of the system design is that it allows for speed in a world of rapidly changing market conditions. “Sometimes you have to do a lot with very little. Sometimes you buy assets and you need to have transparency in your equipment [when onboarding],” Frederickson said.

That was particularly true for Canvas, which saw one of its biggest business results from the new system when the company made a recent asset acquisition that added approximately 1,900 barrels of oil equivalent (BOE) per day to its production over an additional 39,000 net acres of operations, according to Odorisio.

“Drilling inventory existed and it had a pretty strong production base, but one thing we also saw was lots of hardware on site that we felt we could better utilize than what the current operator was doing,” Odorisio said. “Upon the acquisition, we used that existing hardware and brought it into the SCADA platform within 60 days at a low cost of two cents per BOE.

“Rather than going to each site, day-by-day, which is what the previous operator was doing, we were able to do everything directly from the office and/or another field,” she continued. “We feel that is a strong competitive advantage from a merger and acquisitions standpoint. It is a quantified value beyond just production.”

The ability to reduce field miles and better engage in remote operations is a broader business advantage to Canvas’ SCADA system. “Being able to route data into our field data capture as well as layering on some addition visibility with our SCADA system we allow our lease operators to make virtual visits,” Odorisio said. “If there are now critical alarms and they are comfortable that there is likely not a spill, rather than making physical trips we let them virtually visit.”

The results, she said, include a reduction of more than 27,000 field miles driven per year. The company has reduced its physical field visits by 20%, according to its most recent ESG report.

In the end, the partnership was able to lead Canvas Energy to success in achieving it’s three primary goals of the digital transformation: creating proactive operations, leveraging its multidiscipline personnel to help its lease operators and field staff, and create scalability to accommodate its future M&A activities.

About the Author

Len Vermillion | Editor in Chief

Len Vermillion is editor-in-chief of Control.

Emerson Supports Sustainability with Improved Cloud-Hosted Industrial Control Platform

Posted by Community Contributor on Mar 29, 2022 11:03:48 AM

AUSTIN, Texas (March 29, 2022) Zedi Cloud SCADA platform moves to Microsoft Azure for superior scalability and tighter security to help industries meet sustainability goals –

Emerson, a global software, technology and engineering leader, has improved the scalability, data protection and threat intelligence of its Zedi™ Cloud SCADA software-as-a-service control platform by moving it to the Microsoft® Azure cloud platform. The more robust cloud host enables customers to securely scale their supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems quickly and easily to achieve environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments, better safeguard critical business assets, and empower users to adapt their operations to changing requirements while mitigating risks and operational costs.

Most industrial operations are challenged to efficiently meet cost reduction targets and demonstrate actions to attain sustainability goals. Emerson’s Zedi Cloud SCADA platform uses advanced automation and software, including proven machine learning algorithms and artificial intelligence to build predictive models that lead to autonomous operations over time, helping support sustainability efforts in oil and gas, water/wastewater and other data-intensive industries. Critical data from those predictive models can then be stored in an operation’s data historian to more easily track and trend performance and emissions and demonstrate compliance to regulators.

“By moving to Azure, we can better provide managed IIoT services across the edge and cloud that easily connect, monitor and control assets around the world with multi-layered security, increased global data centers, and enhanced infrastructure,” said Nathan Pettus, president of Emerson’s process systems and software business. “The change improves Emerson’s already strong positioning to lead successful digital transformation efforts for several industries, providing solid and sustainable results with a vastly scalable, cloud-based solution that’s highly secure and extremely cost-effective.”

Zedi Cloud SCADA platform moves to Microsoft Azure for superior scalability and tighter security to help industries meet sustainability goals

The move to Microsoft Azure provides the best scalability and enterprise-level functionality of all available cloud platforms. Users can add or remove assets as needed to manage traffic spikes, which is particularly useful as organizations acquire other businesses and need to scale rapidly to accommodate new assets and bring them online quickly. Azure also provides greater hybrid cloud flexibility to enable users to work remotely while maximizing existing on-premises assets for a faster path to safe and effective autonomous operations.

“I'm excited to see our customers expand their use of Microsoft products,” said Gary Nafus, vice president, manufacturing, Microsoft U.S. “The ultimate win is building trust with our customers when they select our products for critical operations, as we aim to continue to empower their business and tech efforts. I look forward to seeing Emerson’s use of Microsoft Azure to help power their Zedi Cloud SCADA platform– improving performance, ultra-high data resolution, and more flexibility for increased scalable and collaborative work. ESG efforts are very important today and this expansion will help push those efforts forward in a strong way.”

The Zedi Cloud SCADA platform helps personnel manage advanced analytics in formats that present authorized end users with clear, easily understood data accessible in the cloud anytime from anywhere. This improved access to intuitive data enables easy remote monitoring of assets, helping users improve operational performance even in rugged, dangerous, or distant locations. Increased layers of cybersecurity and the more robust network afforded by the Azure platform enable customers to further protect data for advanced continuity of operations.

Media:
• Contacts: Emerson Automation Solutions Global Media Contacts

Additional resources:
• Join the Emerson Automation Solutions Community
• Connect with Emerson Automation Solutions via
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About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR), headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), is a global technology and engineering company providing innovative solutions for customers in industrial, commercial and residential markets. Our Automation Solutions business helps process, hybrid and discrete manufacturers maximize production, protect personnel and the environment while optimizing their energy and operating costs. Our Commercial & Residential Solutions business helps ensure human comfort and health, protect food quality and safety, advance energy efficiency and create sustainable infrastructure. For more information visit Emerson.com.

Emerson Receives 2021 IoT Breakthrough Award for ‘Analytics Platform of the Year’

Posted by Community Contributor on Feb 12, 2021 8:15:00 AM

Jan. 20, 2021 - Emerson (NYSE:EMR), a global automation technology and software company, has received the “IoT Analytics Platform of the Year” award for its Plantweb Optics™ Analytics software. The honor, part of the 5th annual IoT Breakthrough Awards, recognizes Emerson’s analytics software that uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve reliability, safety and sustainability while optimizing production for industrial manufacturers. Screen Shot 2021-02-12 at 6.15.18 AM

“Industrial manufacturers generate vast amounts of data, but few companies are really gaining the insights needed to optimize their operations,” said Stuart Harris, group president for Emerson’s digital transformation business. “With Plantweb Optics Analytics, we are providing manufacturers with advanced analytics capabilities that are easy to deploy and quickly deliver results. This IoT Breakthrough Award recognizes our industry-leading technology, expertise and focus on value creation for our customers.”

About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR), headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), is a global technology and engineering company providing innovative solutions for customers in industrial, commercial, and residential markets. Our Automation Solutions business helps process, hybrid, and discrete manufacturers maximize production, protect personnel and the environment while optimizing their energy and operating costs. Our Commercial & Residential Solutions business helps ensure human comfort and health, protect food quality and safety, advance energy efficiency, and create sustainable infrastructure. For more information, visit Emerson.com.

Forward-Looking and Cautionary Statements
Statements in this press release that are not strictly historical may be “forward-looking” statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, and Emerson undertakes no obligation to update any such statements to reflect later developments. These risks and uncertainties include economic and currency conditions, market demand, pricing, protection of intellectual property, cybersecurity, tariffs, competitive and technological factors, among others, as set forth in the Company’s most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K and subsequent reports filed with the SEC.

City of St. Albert Collaborates to Test Smart City Sensor Networks

Posted by Community Contributor on Mar 14, 2017 11:13:47 AM

Students and industry leaders join City to conduct pilot project

The City of St. Albert has launched a Smart City sensor pilot project, which is the first pilot within a larger review of wireless sensor networks and management platforms throughout 2017. The pilots are intended to provide a low-risk, low-cost means to test the application of sensor networks and platforms with a focus on evaluating communications reliability and range, device integration, platform functionality and cost.This first pilot involves the installation of a small weather station on the roof of a City facility, remotely connected to a wireless LoRa network - a low-power wide-area network intended to connect wireless battery operated devices over distances of up to three kilometers away in urban areas. A second location and different sensor device is also under review, to increase the range of the pilot and the type of information collected over the LoRa network.

“This is a great example of how St. Albert is leading the way as an innovative community that places high value on collaboration and data-based decision making,” says Mayor Nolan Crouse. “It is important for the City to assess several technologies as it considers expanding its sensing capacity in the most effective and economical manner. I’m also proud that our Administration works hard to ensure that the City is well-positioned to capitalize on opportunities both now and into the future.”

The weather station’s sensors collect instant readings on outdoor temperature, humidity, rainfall, barometric pressure, wind speed and wind direction. This data is then transmitted wirelessly every few minutes to LoRa network equipment, which is connected to the Internet and stored within a database to make the results available through a web portal. Readings can be provided as instantaneous data or graphs showing trends over longer periods of time and may also be downloaded or posted for public viewing.

The pilot aligns directly with St. Albert’s Smart City Master Plan – a guiding document that describes how the community will advance innovation and collaboration efforts, and apply new technologies and data sources for public benefit. The delivery of small pilot projects and the expanded use of sensors to collect and respond to live data were each referenced as priorities within the Master Plan.

To support the pilot, officials in the City’s Innovation and Technology Services department are working with two partners - the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT) and Edmonton based company Zedi.

Zedi is a leading technology and services company in the field of upstream oil and gas production operations. Zedi is currently expanding its ‘internet of things’ (IoT) platform and expertise for use in other applications in support of Alberta’s communities. Zedi expanded its IoT platform by introducing LoRa to the Alberta market in other pilot activity in late 2016. The use of LoRa combined with Zedi’s existing integrated platform meant the company could install the St. Albert weather station and have it reporting wirelessly that same morning.

NAIT’s involvement is through its Bachelor of Technology (BTech) program, designed to educate future technologists with the technical theory, innovative skills, and ethical and social awareness to meet the challenges of today’s economy. Three BTech students are working on a capstone project which intends to assess several technical considerations for LoRa networks, including effective range in urban and rural areas, power consumption under various real-world conditions and reliability of communications. St. Albert is a strong supporter of NAIT’s BTech program and has participated in several recent shared projects.

The pilot is scheduled to finish in spring 2017 with a "capstone" presentation by the NAIT students and a final report to Zedi and City Administration. The City also has plans to test additional sensor networks, devices and platforms over the course of 2017, as part of its larger review.

For more information on St. Albert’s Smart City Master Plan and the City’s current initiatives, visit stalbert.ca/smartcity.

tel: 866 732 6967