Your company has challenged you to Digitalize. Your board has noticed the massive changes to the consumer world caused by digital technology and new business models and does not want to get left behind. Here are some steps you can take now to get started…
In order to be successful in your Digitalization journey, it is important to look at your existing data sources and the technology you already have in place to assess if it is still creating value and what changes are needed. To do so, you should carry out an as-is value audit and readiness assessment. You’ll need to look at installed technology and ask if it meets the current challenges and opportunities. It is also essential to review the data that is feeding the technology – can you trust it? What about your people? Are they trained and motivated enough to make Digitalization work? By performing a data audit of existing applications these findings will help you to decide whether to ‘sweat’ existing technology or invest in new, and how to prepare your organization for change.
Setting KPIs and implementing fleet-wide KPI monitoring is vital to successful Digitalization in the Energy and Chemical industry. All operations have goals and targets to achieve, constraints and limits to respect, and tasks to be done. The digitally wise will implement a fleet-wide system for tracking and reporting conformance of the operation against these KPIs. Processes will be established to steward behavior and report successes.
With good data and effective measurement systems in place, decision making can be fast and effective. A digital twin is the best tool to accomplish this – this is an accurate virtual representation of an asset and its value chain, over its full range of operation and lifecycle, working in the present, but with full knowledge of its historical performance and accurate understanding of its future potential. For assets already in operation, a digital twin is constantly communicating with the asset via the asset’s data management systems. It synchronizes with the asset’s data model to maintain an always up-to-date, accurate, process model. This means an up-to-date model of the plant is always to hand, for the digitally wise to analyze and assess problems and challenges faster and better.
An energy management and optimization project is a ‘quick win’ project that has plant-wide benefits. Implementation is fast and the end result is worth the effort: 3-11% energy cost savings can be realized with no capital investment in new hardware. Wherever you are on your Digitalization journey, there is a Digitalization project you can start today that can be completed quickly and will have massive impact. Wherever you choose to begin – the time to Digitalize is now.
Find out more about our Digitalization roadmap to success in our video