Emerson’s Boundless Automation vision has been front and center at the 2023 Exchange Immerse users’ conference in Anaheim, California. Numerous subject matter experts have shared the way they have seen Emerson’s technology innovation influenced by Boundless Automation over the last two years.
A bold vision…
Emerson first shared its Boundless Automation vision at the Exchange conference in 2022, where Peter Zornio, Claudio Fayad, and Laura Schafer took to the stage to propose a bold path forward: a next generation automation system that uses technology across every domain to integrate operations and drive contextualized, democratized data from intelligent field devices through the industrial edge and into the cloud.
The Purdue Model, they shared, was no longer serving the needs of an increasingly connected and cloud-enabled operational technology (OT) space. OT teams need flexible solutions to meet the ever-present challenge of maintaining sustainable operations while increasing productivity and profitability. To accomplish those goals requires data—data that is often trapped within silos of legacy architecture. To shift that paradigm, they said, Emerson would build an architecture comprehensive of all domains—energy use, reliability, sustainability, and quality, and more—and that architecture would be built on flexible technology and intuitive integration.
…but a real one
Fast-forward to 2023, and the Exchange Immerse users’ conference is showing that Emerson is delivering on its expansive vision. In just one year, Emerson has released a number of technologies to support the Boundless Automation vision, and many were on display at the conference.
DeltaV Edge Environment
One of the key enablers of digital transformation is the ability to democratize data for use by cross-functional teams. For process data to be useful, it must retain the context from the control system, which is often lost as data is abstracted across many layers of engineering between the field, edge, and cloud in a traditional architecture.
The DeltaV Edge Environment is designed from the ground up with secure data democratization in mind. Offering secure data mobility out of the box, the DeltaV Edge environment efficiently delivers contextualized control system data across the enterprise. The key is accessibility of data— maximized through secure egress from the DeltaV distributed control system to data lakes, data scientists, analytics applications or enterprise resource planning systems.
In addition, the DeltaV Edge Environment enables IT teams to securely connect with all DeltaV data and make it ready for use across the enterprise, bridging the gap between IT and OT.
The rise of AI
As Claudio stated numerous times across the conference, most in attendance were eager to hear about one of the most popular modern topics: artificial intelligence (AI) technology. As AI, and generative AI in particular, have continued to dominate technology media, many of Emerson’s customers were wondering how it would influence the technology they will be installing in coming years. And they were not disappointed.
Users visiting the exhibit hall were able to see AI in action across many booths, including as part of DeltaV Revamp, a new software solution that reduces much of the work of modernizing legacy control. DeltaV Revamp uses cloud computing and AI to automate up to 70% of system configuration, improving planning and eliminating errors and manual conversion work to reduce capital costs by up to 15%. The AI is taught by data from thousands of modernization projects Emerson has performed and is continually refined as new project details are added.
You can learn more about the many different Boundless Automation technologies on display at Emerson Exchange Immerse right here at the Automation Experts blog. Stay tuned as Jim Cahill and I bring you more news out of the event!
