EcoStruxure Profit Advisor offers IIoT capabilities that will enable industrial customers to measure and control the profitability of their operations in real time.
Developed through a partnership with Seeq, a leading provider of software and services that enable data-driven decision making, EcoStruxure Profit Advisor uses Big Data analytics to measure the financial performance of an industrial operation in real time, from the equipment asset level of a plant up to the process unit, plant area, plant site and enterprise levels. On-premise or cloud-enabled, it works seamlessly with any process historian to mine both historical and real-time data. It then processes that data through Schneider Electric’s proprietary segment-specific accounting algorithms to determine real-time operational profitability and potential savings.
“Despite all the new technology and capabilities available to the automation market today, many industrial operations are still performing sub-optimally when it comes to the potential business value they can generate,” according to Craig Resnick, vice president, ARC Advisory Group. “Optimizing business value in industrial operations requires scalable, open solutions that help users leverage every industrial asset. This requires shrinking the time to asset benefit from the smallest mechanical and electrical assets to the supply chain and enterprise. Such an approach could ultimately enable industry to move from monitoring business value to actually controlling it. This would include controlling business functions, such as, for example, scheduling and planning, that until now were purely transactional.”
“While many companies are getting good at controlling the efficiency of their operations in real time, they’re still managing their business month to month. That just doesn’t work anymore,” said Peter Martin, vice president of innovation, Schneider Electric Process Automation. “Business variables are changing quickly—sometimes by the minute—that by the time companies receive updates from whatever enterprise resource planning systems they use, the information is no longer relevant to the business decisions they need to make or should have made.”
Because current cost accounting systems only measure the financial performance of the industrial operation at the overall plant level, it is difficult for companies to truly understand the financial impact—positive and negative—operational changes have on business performance. To address that need, Profit Advisor allows plant personnel to see and understand the ROI and business value their actions, activities and assets are contributing to the business in real time. It empowers the workforce to make better business decisions with a variety of data analytics, which can be displayed in various formats, to help drive operational profitability improvements, safely.
Profit Advisor layers real-time accounting models onto the Seeq Workbench to become a scalable, repeatable and easy-to-implement solution for multiple segments, enabling customers to both measure and control their profitability. And because it can be integrated with Schneider Electric’s simulation and modeling software in a digital twin environment, users are further enabled to forecast profitability under different conditions or if changes to the operation are made. Overall, the software provides:
- Historical Data Review: Profit Advisor can evaluate the historical performance of the plant to assess its operational profitability, helping plant personnel analyze and understand how the operation performed during different conditions. It enables the workforce to identify performance-improving initiatives. And since it can be tied to individual pieces of equipment, it can provide that information down to even the smallest asset in the operation.
- Real Time Performance Indication: Profit Advisor can indicate current performance and inform plant personnel when their operating decisions are making the business more profitable. Actual ROI and return on improvements will be visible, enabling plant personnel to concentrate and refine their efforts to the actions that provide the greatest financial returns. It also enables plant personnel to determine which parts of operation are constraining operational profitability and accurately estimate the business value their decisions might actually create.
- Profit Planning: Profit Advisor empowers process engineers to predict the profitability of the changes they are proposing, which will substantially minimize project risk and help to eliminate waste.
Schneider Electric
Schneider-electric.com
Filed Under: IoT • IIoT • internet of things • Industry 4.0
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