Emerson’s Juan Panama and Mark Jordan presented on building the utility of tomorrow, today at the 2019 Ovation Users’ Group conference. The focus was on how to start down the path to digital transformation. It begins with a solid business case.

For instance, in a combined cycle unit, typical fixed operating and maintenance costs can be reduced by eliminating maintenance practices that result in unnecessary work and high labor costs, gaining insight into the “right” asset performance & health data, connecting unorganized and siloed data, automating procedures and processes, and transitioning the workforce from lower value to higher value add activities.

To successfully implement digital transformation strategies, it’s critical to make technology decisions based on the intended business outcome. Ask what’s the economic return? What am I trying to solve here?

The technology decision can be small. For instance, it could be a problem with a pump or a problem with corrosion in the facility or even knowing where plant personnel are located. It can be a variety approaches or a very simple place to start where you can then potentially scale it.

The second element is to take a scalable approach to these investments. These decisions should be guided by an overall vision, but those who try to implement all at once are bound to be disappointed by the results. Finally, all technology investment should also be viewed as an investment in people. Enabling them to add more value and creating a better, more engaging work environment.

One area to consider digital transformation is around digital inspection. Routine manual collection of maintenance, reliability, and integrity data with portable testers or time-consuming interpretation can be significantly reduced or eliminated. Data is collected automatically, transmitted digitally, and analyzed by software to detect early signs of problems. This drives maintenance.

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