Setting new standards in innovation in the analytical space.

The mixed-model production line increases the output by 100 percent and reduces lead times by more than 30 percent.

ABB has partnered with Porsche Consulting, a leading management consultancy and a subsidiary of the sports car manufacturer, to reshape the landscape of analyzer manufacturing, solidifying ABB’s position at the forefront of the analyzer market.

The collaboration drives the deployment of a mixed-model production line for ABB’s process and laboratory analyzers manufactured in Canada, leveraging best practices from the automotive industry. The new production line offers optimized logistics, quality control and operations management, leading to 100 percent increase in output within the same floor space, and more than 30 percent decrease in lead times.

The production floor of the ABB factory in Quebec City, Canada

During the project, every aspect of the manufacturing process – from the production line setup and logistics to quality control methods and operations management principles – was examined and reimagined. In addition, change management approaches were introduced to prepare the factory staff for addressing the market's evolving needs, such as enhancing manufacturing and planning methods with test automation, live operations KPIs, and decoupling manufacturing subassembly product lines.

"Porsche Consulting helped us rethink our manufacturing systems. We wanted to be closer to the customers with better lead times and better reactivity, and to offer customers better visibility of the status of products during manufacturing,” said Marc Corriveau, Head of Global Operations, Analytical Busines Line, ABB. “The smart, digital and lean manufacturing process pioneered through this collaboration will shape the future of analyzer production, meeting the ever-evolving demands of the market and enabling us to maintain unmatched quality and service for our customers.”

Since the delivery of the first units in the spring of 2023, production has ramped up to double capacity, a testament to the efficiency and success of the innovative approach. Furthermore, the reduction in lead times has empowered ABB to respond swiftly to dynamic market demands.

The collaboration marks the latest chapter in a long-standing partnership between ABB and Porsche Consulting, which has encompassed diverse projects from strategic visioning to pragmatic operational transformations.

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@ABBgroupnews @ABBMeasurement @abb_automation @PorscheConIta @AdmiralPR #PAuto #Canada

Acquisition increases consultancy strength and digital expertise.

Acquisition expands Emerson’s consultancy strength and digital transformation expertise!

iSolutions Inc., a Canadian-based consulting group with expertise designing and implementing data management solutions has been acquired by Emerson. The acquired company provides organisations with decision-support tools to make data-driven production and operational decisions based on the analysis of real-time insights from integrated field and plant systems.

The acquisition will accelerate delivery of Emerson’s new digital transformation roadmap by adding proven skillsets in information technology/operational technology (IT-OT) and application knowledge to help integrate data from the plant floor to business systems.

“We make the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) tangible through our approach focused on business needs and readiness,” said Thomas Waun, general manager for Operational Certainty Consulting at Emerson. “With the addition of iSolutions expertise, Emerson can expedite roadmap implementation and digital transformation deployments across organisations – helping them realise faster return on technology investments and achieve top quartile performance in the areas of safety, reliability, energy consumption and production.”

iSolutions has a proven reputation with North American upstream oil and gas, power and utilities customers for its successful and repeatable methodology that transforms plant data into real-time key performance indicator (KPI) visualisation and business intelligence. In addition, its expertise will strengthen Emerson’s Operational Certainty Consulting organisation with the addition of a data management practice for process, hybrid and discrete businesses.

As part of Emerson, iSolutions will help organisations deploy Emerson’s Plantweb™ digital ecosystem, the industry’s most comprehensive IIoT platform.

“We’re excited to join Emerson and expand the reach of our expertise throughout Emerson’s global organisation,” said Anil Datoo, on behalf of the four founding partners at iSolutions. “Together we can continue to make digital transformation practical, accessible and achievable.”

@iSolutions_Inc #PAuto @EMR_Automation  @HHC_Lewis 

Roadmap towards digital transformation.

A Digital Transformation Roadmap with consulting and implementation services has been launched by Emerson. This will help companies develop and execute a tailored digital transformation plan to reach Top Quartile performance.

Lal Karsanbhai at EMREX Americas (Oct'18)
(Pic @GIndustriesMEX)

The manufacturing industry is focused on digital transformation, leveraging new technologies to boost operational performance. But there is no consensus on how to get there – or what success looks like. With no industry standard, it is hard for companies to know whether they are on the right track or when they have arrived. Operations technology (OT) and information technology (IT) leaders are often siloed, not collaborating toward one central mission to achieve digital transformation.

“Our customers have different starting points and levels of maturity when it comes to evaluating and implementing digital transformation strategies,” said Lal Karsanbhai, executive president of Emerson Automation Solutions. “Emerson’s proven digital transformation approach provides the ultimate flexibility while pinpointing the optimum path for each customer, based on their objectives, readiness and overall digital maturity.”

Emerson Survey: 8 out of 10 Lack Digital Transformation Roadmap
In an Emerson study of industry leaders responsible for digital transformation initiatives, merely 20 percent of respondents said they had a vision, plus a clear and actionable roadmap for digital transformation. Additionally, 90 percent stated that having a clear roadmap was important, very important or extremely important. Absence of a practical roadmap was also cited as the number one barrier for digital transformation projects; cultural adoption and business value round out the top three barriers to progress. While all respondents were actively conducting pilot projects, only 21 percent had moved beyond that stage into new operating standards.

Leveraging customer engagements with successful digital transformation programmes, Emerson defined a structured, yet flexible approach to help customers focus on priority areas with a practical roadmap tailored to their business needs and readiness. The goal is to help companies use technology to reach Top Quartile performance, measured by optimised production, improved reliability, enhanced safety and minimised energy usage.

“There is a clear global urgency among executives to harness innovation to improve performance, but many companies feel stalled for lack of a clear path,” Karsanbhai said. “Customers who engage with our operational certainty consultants quickly gain clarity on their best bets for digital transformation and a realistic implementation plan to accelerate time to results.”

Digital Roadmap Combines Technology with Industry Expertise
Emerson’s Digital Transformation Roadmap has two focus areas: business drivers and business enablers. Business drivers look at capabilities and performance relative to industry benchmarks in key areas: production management, reliability and maintenance, safety and security, and/or energy and emissions. The business enabler focus looks at capabilities in organisational effectiveness and systems and data integration. For each, Emerson has identified detailed criteria to measure customer performance along the digital journey – from conventional to best-in-class to the highest level: digitally autonomous operations.

Companies can start the digital transformation journey wherever they are, from starting small in one facility to address key issues, such as pump health or personnel safety mustering; to exploring companywide programmes across an entire business driver, such as reliability of critical assets; to driving enterprise-wide adoption of cloud-based technologies and analytics for overall business transformation.

@EMR_Automation #PAuto #Emrex

Co-operation to help oil & gas procedures.

Emerson and StepChange Global have combined their technology and consulting expertise to help producers increase production and cut operational costs by developing, implementing, and evolving best practices with Integrated Operations (iOps) and Digital Oilfield. An effective iOps solution helps users improve profitability through better access to real-time data and information, innovative technology, and its integration into a collaborative organisation.

Emerson’s technology and StepChange Global’s consultants help improve collaboration between the operational site and the support teams in the office in order to maximise the value that can be gained from operating asset information. With iOps, an enterprise can then build confidence in its information and trust among extended teams to implement improvements that include improving operator efficiency and optimising its core operational processes.

By optimising production using iOps tools and techniques, an oilfield can see production efficiency improvements of up to two percent. A closed-loop gas lift application can see production improvements of five percent. Previous iOps implementations have seen OPEX reductions of five to 20 percent with payback in less than a year.

“The oilfield major players see Integrated Operations as a transformational programme to optimise their business performance, and is the way they will work in the future,” said Tony Edwards, StepChange Global CEO. “Performance optimisation is required as the industry struggles with falling oil prices, key skill shortages, and risk reduction and compliance requirements for both Health, Safety & Environmental (HSE) and production.”

“Working with StepChange helps us drive increased production efficiency for our customers,” said Jerry Brown, senior vice-president of Emerson’s industry solutions. “We are reducing operations and maintenance OPEX costs by improving visibility of real-time actionable asset information across multiple remote sites and oilfields.”

@EmersonProcess @StepchangeG #Pauto 

Major British award for asset management consultant.

The Asset Management consulting and training services company MCP, is celebrating the award of Britain’s highest accolade for business success -The Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade 2016.

The Award recognises MCP's growing export success to 50 countries worldwide, with recent significant increase in sales to North America, Asia, Europe and the UAE where a complex Change Management programme for Dubai Airports has been completed.

Their extensive portfolio of business improvement consultancy and training services has allowed MCP to support national and multinational blue-chip organisations’ drives to improve performance and reduce cost.

#PAuto #MCBeurope

Estimating plant energy savings easily!

With a long history of involvement in promoting energy savings, Emerson Industrial Automation has invested massively in research into technological solutions and services designed to cut energy bills. On the strength of this expertise, Emerson now presents the Energy Savings Advisor, its new mobile app offering businesses the opportunity to calculate the energy savings that can be achieved on their applications with its high-performance drive solutions.

Highly intuitive, precise and interactive, the Energy Savings Advisor app can be used to estimate and quickly assess the value of potential savings on a motorised application by implementing Emerson's high-efficiency drive solutions, whether its fixed or variable speed ranges, using either induction or permanent magnet synchronous technology.

In addition to the motor on its own or the contribution made by a variable speed drive, the Energy Savings Advisor takes account of the motorised application in its entirety, from the motor to the transmission, including the mechanical or electronic regulation system.

Very easily and in a matter of minutes, the Energy Savings Advisor runs simulations and compares the existing equipment according to different custom scenarios in order to obtain the most relevant analysis and meet a need for energy optimization. The potential savings for the application concerned are immediately calculated and displayed in the form of a graphic overview. A complete report showing a breakdown of the simulation and results obtained can then be sent by e-mail.

The Energy Savings Advisor can also be used to transmit the result of a simulation directly to Emerson's energy optimization experts for more in-depth analysis. They can then suggest adopting a global energy optimization approach for a device or a process by choosing the best-performing drive system for the given application. Emerson's specialists can help businesses identify the best possible options depending on their goals in terms of return on investment or total cost of use, thus contributing to improving the performance of the investments made.

Available in several languages and optimized for the majority of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the Energy Savings Advisor can be downloaded free of charge from the website

New sales VP at processing industries supplier

PAS has appointed David Vinzant as Vice-President of Sales. He has over 30 years of industry experience and joins PAS from SunGard Energy where he was the Chief Operating Officer and Head of Sales. Prior to SunGard, he held executive-level positions at Invensys and TransEnergy.

Mr. Vinzant, who holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Texas A&M University, has global experience in multiple industries, including Oil & Gas, Refining, Petrochemical, and Utilities. For the last 15 years, he has managed customer facing activities for all phases of sales and delivery of implemented software and industrial automation solutions.

"PAS provides unique solutions critical to the safe and effective operation of our customer’s production assets,” he says. “I look forward to working with our customers to meet the growing and changing needs of their business, as well as contribute to PAS’ continued growth.”

“I’m very excited about David joining our team here at PAS. His extensive background in sales will help strengthen our leadership within our target markets,” says Chris Lyden, President at PAS.

Safety Consulting

The Schmersal Group broadens its service offer with respect to machinery safety. The new Safety Consulting service aims at providing the company´s customers with comprehensive consultancy regarding issues such as the implementation of directives and standards in actual constructional practice.

In recent months, experienced engineers from German plants as well as from multiple European subsidiaries have been qualified as machinery safety experts. They are already on duty in the new Application Center, where they closely collaborate with the local sales engineers and the product management. In other nations, e.g. China and the U.S.A., the consultants will be qualified in September 2010.

The key task of the Safety Consultants will consist in providing the customers with qualified answers to their questions, e.g. which type of safety system must be used, how the safety system must be integrated in the control system and the functionalities of the machine and how the programmable electronic safety system can be configured to optimally meet both the safety requirements and the productivity specifications of the machine.

The assessment of the required Performance Level to EN ISO 13849-1 and the calculation of the actual Performance Level for the selected safety system are two other tasks that the Safety Consultants accomplish for the customers.

The first reactions of the customers onto the new service offer are throughout positive. Uwe Wiemer, Application Center Manager: "Many of our customers want to delegate the configuration of regulation-compliant safety systems to experts, who accept the full responsibility for this assignment. As one of the world market leaders in the safety switchgear business, we have acquired a comprehensive and highly practice-related knowhow in this field. As a result of our collaboration and affiliation to different standardisation bodies, we also have the necessary theoretical ´background´, which is required for configuring standard-compliant safety guards."

Other services will be added to the Safety Consulting, which will be offered worldwide by the Schmersal Group. The objective is to come to a manufacturer- and technology-neutral way of thinking and to develop or to configure complex safety-technical solutions beyond the own product spectrum.

Simultaneously, the usual services rendered by Schmersal will be integrated in the Application Center as well. "We have always undertaken additional tasks such as the parameter setting of safety controllers or making customer-specific modifications to our safety switchgear. That´s our reputation on the market. These tasks are now transferred to our Application Center. As a result of the centralization of our service offer, we can work in a more concentrated manner, thus creating the necessary freedom for development, product management and sales to raise the tone of our ´one-stop shop for safety´ claim on the market."