When I was as-a-service offerings in the wake of my trip to HPE Discover 2019, I mentioned Inductive Automation as an example in the industrial market. There is actually another company. I’ve never heard about it—bad on my part. It’s called Zedi Solutions. I didn’t know if it was just the Canadian way of pronouncing “z” (we Americans say “zee” and there rest of the English-speaking world says “zed”) or a play on “Jedi”. Well, there’s a rocket with a window on its Web page.
Zedi Solutions is a company no more. Emerson’s methodically growing digital transformation presence was just enhanced through the acquisition of its cloud-based supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) platform.
Emerson states that the acquisition of Zedi’s software will enable it to help oil and gas producers increase production and lower operating costs through cloud-based monitoring, control and optimization.
“As world energy demand continues to grow, helping our vital oil and gas market customers maximize their resources is a top priority,” said Lal Karsanbhai, executive president of Emerson’s Automation Solutions business. “Through our vast portfolio of automation technologies, we are helping the industry navigate ever-changing market dynamics and operational challenges. The addition of Zedi strengthens our ability to help customers leverage the latest advances from the field to the refinery.”
Zedi’s technology is currently enabling customers to monitor more than 2 million sensors and thousands of devices and applications. By combining Zedi’s scalable cloud platform and applications expertise with Emerson’s extensive applications, controller, instrumentation and flow metering portfolio, this acquisition expands opportunities for Emerson across the global oil and gas production market.
“Oil and gas producers today are challenged to meet production targets while controlling costs, and they are looking for opportunities to transform operations and make their teams more effective through digital solutions like analytics and mobility,” said Jim Nyquist, group president of Emerson’s systems and solutions business. “This important investment bolsters our portfolio and ability to help Emerson’s customers achieve Top Quartile performance through emerging Industrial Internet of Things technologies.”
Emerson and Zedi’s software and automation businesses share a common vision of automating the production process through edge and cloud analytics and machine learning. The combined software and expertise of the two companies will provide producers with scalable and easily deployable end-to-end connected solutions to optimize and manage their operations.
Zedi’s software and automation businesses are based in Calgary, Canada, with approximately 155 employees in North America.
Emerson tried the SCADA acquisition route many years ago with the acquisition of Intellution. It subsequently sold that company to GE and it became a foundation for GE Digital. The company just wasn’t a fit at the time. Even though I don’t know Zedi, I have a feel that this will work out far better for Emerson. For one thing, times and markets have changed. For another, Emerson is already more advanced in software than it was 20 years ago.
