Emerson Automation’s PlantWeb architecture has grown and morphed into a full blown Industrial Internet of Things platform. The redesigned and reinvigorated integrated architecture forms the foundation of Emerson’s new Operational Certainty initiative. This is the first of a few reports on the latest Emerson Automation news.

Steve Sonnenberg, recently elevated into the role of Chairman of Emerson Automation—the company formerly known as Emerson Process Management, introduced new Executive President Mike Train to the assembled customers and press at the 2016 edition of Emerson Global Users Exchange in Austin, Texas on Oct. 24. Train then introduced Operational Certainty.

The previous initiative was Project Certainty where the company strategists arrayed its existing and new products into a package that was designed to remove automation from the critical path of capital projects. These days capital projects are few and far between. Companies are scrambling to wring more profitability from existing assets. Therefore a new approach from Emerson that is obviously driven by its customers’ needs. Train says that this initiative will help wrest more than $1 trillion from operational losses globally.

Initiatives need benchmarks. Emerson introduced peer benchmarking on best practices to achieve Top Quartile performance in safety, reliability, production, and energy management. Top Quartile is defined as achieving operations and capital performance in the top 25 percent of peer companies.

The company is also launching a new Operational Certainty consulting practice plus expanded project execution methodologies and resources. Additionally, on October 24, the company will announce a new Industrial Internet of Things (IoT) digital ecosystem to provide the technology foundation for companies to securely implement Industrial IoT to achieve measurable business performance improvement.

A few examples of Emerson’s findings:

  • In terms of safety, Top Quartile performers had one-third the number of safety incidents as compared to their average industry peers.
  • In terms of asset reliability, Emerson found that Top Quartile performers spend half as much on maintenance compared with average performers and operate with an incremental 15 days of available production each year.
  • In the domain of production, Top Quartile manufacturers spent 20 percent less on production-related expenses as compared to average producers.
  • In the area of energy and emissions, the top 25 percent of producers spent one-third as much as the industry average on energy costs and had 30 percent less CO2 emissions.
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