Emerson’s consultancy expertise in designing and implementing data-management solutions has expanded since the 2018 acquisition of Canada-based iSolutions. “The data-management team has both project-delivery and lifecycle components. It’s part of the systems and data business functions, and it’s a key component to digital management functions,” said Anil Datoo, vice president, data management with Emerson’s Automation Solutions business, explaining the scope of a new consulting team’s capabilities at Emerson Global Users Exchange in Nashville, Tennessee. The consultancy specializes in IT/OT data management, solution architecture, design and implementation.
The recently acquired services and capabilities extend Emerson’s existing abilities to integrate and expose data. Four key areas of expertise include data-historian platforms, cloud migrations from on-premise to the cloud using the Magnotix tool to stream data, business intelligence reporting, and an industrial data-management toolbox.
Solid data-management and integration strategies enable better data strategies and stronger IT-OT collaboration. Opportunity vetting and ROI-based proof of concept are executed in a vendor-agnostic environment, while IoT modernization and cloud migrations can be completed more smoothly with the Emerson consulting team’s assistance.
The team supplements Emerson’s operational-analytics portfolio to enable self-serve intelligent organizations. “We encounter users interested in increased visibility,” said Datoo. “The key benefits we provide include improved work prioritization from timely awareness of impacts; improved communication between field and office personnel; contextualized source data sets for deeper analytics; and reduced load and improved security for control infrastructure.”
One use case Datoo identified revolved around IT-OT collaboration at a chemicals plant, which managed polyethylene product quality excursions by allowing subject-matter experts (SMEs) to analyze correlations between product qualities.
Using Aspen IP.21, Magnotix, operator logs, a laboratory information-management system (LIMS) and Microsoft Azure, the plant was able to reduce polyethylene production excursions by understanding interactions between catalysts and feedstocks more effectively.
“We believe data management is a key enabler of digital transformation solutions. We try to stay vendor-agnostic, so our platforms are able to connect to any device or control systems. If the data-management layer is built properly, that layer is where you would centralize the analytics and the visualization,” said Datoo.
“Digital transformation is largely brownfield,” explained Peter Zornio, chief technology officer with Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “Anil’s team is the part that does the data integration. It’s a business process. We see the need for a consulting group to tackle that.”