Emerson Exchange 365

by Paul Studebaker

Emerson Process Management Pursues Role of “Trusted Advisor”

When Diana Nyad came out of the water in Key West, after succeeding on her fifth attempt to swim the 110 miles from Cuba to Florida, “She told reporters something very interesting,” said Steve Sonnenberg, Emerson Process Management president, to the nearly 3,000 attendees of his keynote speech Monday at the 2013 Emerson Global Users Exchange. “She said that it looks like swimming is a solitary sport, but in reality it is a team sport.

“She’s the hero of the story, the one who made the swim. But she relied on a team of nearly 40 people who were her trusted advisors on everything from navigation to weather to nutrition to avoiding the jellyfish stings which had ended her previous attempt. She trusted these specialists to advise and guide her, to keep her safe, to look out for her interests--to make her goal theirs and help her reach it,” Sonnenberg said. “My goal is for you to think of Emerson as part of your team--as your trusted advisor--when it comes to automation.”  

Emerson’s focus in 2013 has been to make the needed changes to earn that trust--changes customers asked for in their responses to “thousands of surveys,” Sonnenberg said. “You lauded our products and talented people, but you also said you want solutions to problems, and you want Emerson to be easier to do business with, to help you overcome knowledge gaps, and to work together better as a group of companies.”

Sonnenberg outlined the four elements of its strategic direction--introduced last year--that provide a framework for Emerson’s efforts to earn a role as your trusted advisor:

• Connecting to customers
• Technology innovation
•  Lifecycle services
• Perfect execution

To better connect with customers, “Our aim here is to intimately understand your situation, your pains, and your goals so we can provide solutions that are right for you. The people on Diana Nyad’s team not only understood what she wanted to achieve; they also understood the obstacles she faced so they could find a way to overcome them.”

Emerson is strengthening its industry expertise and solutions capabilities. It now has “more than 800 industry, application, and technology specialists who work together--and with you--to solve your toughest problems,” Sonnenberg said. These specialists now have an internal web portal to collaborate and share information for problem solving, and are encouraged to increase their knowledge by taking courses in Emerson’s on-line training program.

Emerson is also developing pre-engineered, industry solutions--proven combinations of technologies and services tailored to specific applications. Examples of this include a refinery blending application, or monitoring conveyors in an open-pit mine, or managing artificial lift to get more out of an oil field. “These all require a deeper understanding of both the industry and the technology for improving it,” Sonnenberg said. “We have over 20 such solutions so far, with many more on the way.”

The second area is technology innovation, traditionally an Emerson strength and described extensively in the accompanying article about Chief Strategic Officer Peter Zornio’s presentation. Sonnenberg emphasized continuing investments in human-centered design--designing products for the way people work instead of making people change the way they work to fit the products. For example, Electronic Marshalling reduces the complexity of project engineering and scheduling.

“We’re applying human-centered design to more products all the time--even re-designing some of our existing products for better usability and maintainability,” Sonnenberg said.

Another trend is pervasive sensing, where the falling costs of sensors and wireless technology are accelerating their use to address business critical issues such as reliability, energy, safety, health, and environment. Emerson introduced five new wireless products this year and have several more planned for next year. “The adoption rate for Smart Wireless is astounding and is now approaching 2 billion operating hours in the field,” Sonenberg said. “It shows this is another innovation that you clearly found useful.”

To help make all that data actionable, Emerson is building integrated operations (“iOps”) centers that offer “a way to bring together all kinds of information from multiple operations, and make that information available not just to operators but also to specialists like reliability experts who can analyze and troubleshoot problems from halfway around the world,” Sonnenberg said. “We’ve built an iOps center in our facility in Austin Texas, so that we can demonstrate these capabilities to you.”

The final way Emerson is accelerating technology advancements is through acquisition, most recently of Virgo Valves and Controls, which will enhance its ability to supply engineered on-off valves, especially for oil and gas operations.

The third element in Emerson’s strategic direction is strengthening lifecycle services. “A big project may take 5 or 6 years from initial planning to full production, followed by 20 to 60 years of maintenance, optimization and enhancements,” Sonnenberg said. “Making the most of that investment over its lifetime is a whole lot easier if you have expert support services from people who know you and your operation, as well as the technology that runs it.”

Emerson has added seven new service centers and expanded others. Over the next two years it plans to add 12 more, for a total to more than 400. It also added 215 additional service people this year, for a total of almost 2,700. Centers are being deployed close to customers so they’ll get faster response on “everything from parts and repairs to turnaround support – from people you can trust to get it right,” Sonnenberg said.

The fourth and final strategic element is perfect execution. “To help you improve your operations, we need to improve our own operations,” Sonnenberg said. “In particular, we need to be easier to do business with. That includes having simpler business processes, consistent project execution, and delivery dates you can count on.”

Emerson’s ability to draw on a combination of local and global resources can bring significant force to bear on a problem or project anywhere in the world, and it has added more than 500 project personnel in the past year, bringing the total to more than 5100. It’s also extending the role of its Project Management Office, which develops common tools, processes, and project expertise “so the whole organization can standardize on best practices for every project,” Sonnenberg said.

Emerson has added capacity around the world – almost 1 million square feet in North America alone, in Minneapolis, Austin and Dallas. It’s also shortening its supply chains, in some cases having suppliers move their factories closer to Emerson’s. New emergency shipment capabilities now provide one-day shipment of critical parts in “all world areas,” and the company is “making excellent progress on a program to ship our standard, assemble to order products within 10 days,” Sonnenberg said.

“By combining those elements, we’re working to become problem-solvers and trusted advisors, to make Emerson Process Management easier to do business with,” Sonnenberg concluded. “Earlier I talked about Diana Nyad’s trust in her team of advisors--but I also made the point that she is the hero of the story. She’s the one who made the swim and earned the acclaim.

“Similarly, you are the true heroes of every automation story--whether it’s a greenfield project, an upgrade or turnaround for an existing unit, or just keeping everything running the way it’s supposed to be, day in and day out. You may not always get the credit you deserve--which is why my predecessor, John Berra, called you the ‘unsung heroes’--but I have some understanding what you’re up against and what it takes to reach your goals.

“My hope is that you’ll let us help you get there – that when you run into obstacles or need a hand or just some advice, you’ll trust us to be part of your team.”