In the clouds!

Emerson Exchange, the Emerson User Group on-line conference continued for a second day and we managed to attend one or two of the presentations!

Peter Zornio addresses the EMREX EMEA'21 from deep within the Emerson Control Centre somewhere deep in the heart of in Texas! 

Perhaps a disadvantage in these on-line conferences is distractions. It is so easy in these days of working from home to walk away or miss a talk because of something else happening that "must" be seen to. Physical presence at these conferences perhaps ensures a more concentrated application to the business in hand. The other thing missing is of course the professional relationships continued, fostered and established at such gatherings facilitating the exchanging of experiences and ideas. This COVID-19 has a lot to answer for!

Bader Al-Attar, Deputy CEO Planning Finance at Kuwait Oil Company discussed “The need for improved digitization in the Oil Gas Business.” Major oil & gas entities are impacted severely not only by pandemic and currency crises but also now by the effect of sustainability policies and need to reduce carbon emissions. Digitisation is an important, indeed essential, help in confronting these challenges.

What should go and what should stay!

Peter Zornio, Chief Technology Officer at Emerson talked about “Cloud, cloud, cloud – but for Plant Operations?” and focussed on the developments in usage of the Cloud which sometimes appears, particularly in the IT world as the answer to a maiden's prayer. It does have many benefits of course like universal access, little or no capital investment etc.

But we should be careful. While these maybe useful in the IT world it is not as completely useful in the OT world. Certainly there are useful aspects of cloud technology like analysis and historian. It is important however to maintain "hands on" on the core control of a process and be careful in deciding what should stay and what should go into the cloud! NAMUR recognises that most customers want (need) base operations to function without the cloud.

These and other of the sessions are available on the website for delegates to see at a later date on the site - it's free!

• Here are our impressions from Day 1: From defence to reimagining the new era! (29/3/2021)

• Impressions from Emerson User Group Conferences through the years.

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