Efficient Plant May 2020 - 23

feature | digital transformation
excess capacity sits idle elsewhere. You need to
extract the right equipment and quality data
from your operations and share it with the
right people across your organization in an
easy-to-consume format.
Without complete, uniform performance
data from equipment, it's impossible to make
valid comparisons. A trusted digital-transformation partner should be able to help you
determine exactly which metrics to track
across all of your assets-and how to ensure
data is always consistent, regardless of the
equipment generating it. Standard data will
allow you to easily roll up production results
across all your lines and plants to give you a
single source of the truth.

better at managing safety and risks.
For many companies, their existing facilities
were not originally intended for today's small
runs and rapid changeovers. Complete visibility into all of your plant's operations makes
rapid output shifts possible. Plus, you'll have
the information necessary to generate a new
bill of materials, reroute components, change
equipment schedules, and re-assign employ-

ees-allowing you to keep pace with today's
shorter demand cycles. EP
Joe Gerstl is Director of Product Management
for Manufacturing Software at GE Digital, San
Ramon, CA, ge.com/digital. He's worked in the
software industry and manufacturing for more
than 30 years, in various roles including engineering, sales, and product management.

MODELING POWER
When you can define the relationships
between each element of your manufacturing
process, you can create a digital representation
of your plant-a digital twin. The next time
a machine goes down, you can quickly spot
the other equipment, operators, and processes that are affected and redeploy resources.
Or, you can use unexpected downtime as an
opportunity to perform much-needed maintenance. With real-time data and analysis, along
with specific-data models, your workforce can
make informed decisions on the fly.
According to LNS, a typical data model
spans an enterprise's assets, processes, and
systems to holistically optimize performance.
Data models play an essential role in any
IIoT solution and are especially important for
industrial analytics, including AI and machine
learning. Using sophisticated data analytics,
world-class companies have developed finely
tuned market-sensing capabilities to stay on
top of changing purchase patterns. In a study
from LNS Research entitled, "Benchmarking the Value of Enterprise Data Visibility,"
companies that use IIoT analytics and provide
data visibility are 30% faster at taking product
designs to production, 24% better at managing product and supplier quality, and 23%

MAY 2020

EP2005fgedigital.indd 23

INNOVATION
THAT REVOLVES

AROUND YOU
Inpro/Seal® didn't just invent the Bearing Isolator.
We've perfected it - again and again - to meet the
unique needs of our customers. Our whatever-it-takes
approach to protecting and extending the life of rotating
equipment is why, over 40 years later, Inpro/Seal is
the trusted source of permanent bearing protection.
www.inpro-seal.com/est1977

EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM |

23

5/1/20 10:55 AM
http://www.ge.com/digital http://www.inpro-seal.com/est1977 http://www.EFFICIENTPLANTMAG.COM
Efficient Plant May 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Efficient Plant May 2020
