Industrial Automation Magazine India

Our software creates opportunities in the net-zero economy across various industries

Published on : Thursday 05-10-2023

Emon Zaman, Senior Vice President, Head of Asia Pacific, AVEVA.

AVEVA has been working closely with different industries. Could you elaborate with examples of how AVEVA works with them?
Firstly, more than 90 percent of leading companies in 12 industrial sectors from food and manufacturing to power, energy, infrastructure and marine, rely on AVEVA’s digital solutions to help them deliver life’s essentials: safe, reliable energy, food, infrastructure, transportation and more. By connecting people with trusted information and AI-enriched insights, we enable teams to engineer efficiently and optimise operations, driving growth and sustainability.
 
Our secure industrial cloud software and solutions enable organisations to harness the power of data and AI-driven insights, improving collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners, all while driving responsible use of the world’s resources. An industrial organisation looking to become more sustainable can use our digital technology to speed up the process from the design and build of new green facilities to operating them more efficiently and conserving energy at existing plants.
 
Our software creates opportunities in the net-zero economy across various industries. For instance, B2B manufacturer Barry Callebaut harnessed digital transformation to support product innovation, enhance consistency, leverage cost reductions, and improve sustainability outcomes. The company employs AVEVA’s Manufacturing Execution System (MES) to consolidate existing HMI/SCADA plant data into a connected, real-time standardised digital backbone that is accessible to relevant teams throughout the organisation. With these new insights, Barry Callebaut has been able to reduce variability and uncover hidden capacity, resulting in an overall productivity improvement of more than 10 percent – equivalent to an entirely new production line.
 
Sustainability has become a major priority across industries. How is AVEVA helping customers reach their sustainability goals?
We firmly believe that trusted data-led technologies are indispensable for achieving decarbonisation and delivering innovative, climate-forward products. Our software facilitates our customers' sustainability priorities in three key ways: enhancing operational efficiency, agility, and reliability; connecting and contextualising key sustainability data with artificial intelligence and human insight; and sustainably delivering capital projects, within budget and on schedule. It also provides a way to accurately baseline data and measure progress. In fact, our technology supports process optimisation, real-time collaboration and identifies ways to reduce carbon emissions across the entire life-cycle of the industrial asset.
 
AVEVA software is leveraged to promote circularity by improving sustainable design for greenfield and brownfield projects, supporting environmental compliance and certification, enhancing asset management and optimisation, and indicating pathways to decarbonisation. Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City (known as PCMC), in Pune, India, has used AVEVA smart systems to cut pollution by 18-22 percent by reducing traffic waiting times. It has also decreased water leakage in the sewerage system by up to 25 percent. During the pandemic, PCMC was able to use digital smart kiosks to issue vaccination tickets remotely, meaning that the city was among the fastest to roll out vaccine jabs. We are working with Schneider Electric on the next phase of the city’s evolution, which will encompass smart water metering and smart water management. This is part of India’s Smart Cities Mission launched by the Indian Government in 2015, focused on supporting investments in technology to drive sustainable, economic, and urban growth for 100 model cities around the country.
 
How is AVEVA helping the manufacturing sector to bring in agility and operational efficiency at a time of increasing disruption?

The digital transformation of manufacturing operations has emerged as a crucial foundation for enhancing operational efficiency and flexibility, and achieving comprehensive visibility across the supply chain amidst growing disruptions. Our edge-to-enterprise AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System (MES) possesses the capability to digitally transform production workflows and provide a holistic overview of operations from the shopfloor to the top-floor, enabling manufacturers to future-proof their operations and ensure long-term competitiveness and profitability.
 
In short, AVEVA MES allows organisations to digitise, standardise, optimise and govern their operational processes and work activities across industrial manufacturing plants.
 
The key challenge for customers is that industrial data is generated in many different formats from many different systems. By leveraging the cloud to eliminate data silos between information technology, operational technology, and engineering technology, industrial enterprises can create a powerful network effect.
 
Industrial Intelligence as a Service (IIaaS) forms the core of a new kind of connected industrial economy, and AVEVA empowers businesses to drive multi-site MES solutions simultaneously and consistently across connected plants. For several years now, factories have observed significant gains from automated production processes, Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) devices, paperless manufacturing, and data-driven continuous improvement.
 
Our role in Schneider Electric's Smart Factory Program is a great example of how our software optimises end-to-end efficiency, reduces costs and delivers asset reliability in the industrial environment. Our asset performance management (APM) and MES solutions are foundational to the smart factory digital manufacturing model; effectively transforming the global footprint of more than 100 of Schneider Electric’s manufacturing sites to improve product quality, operational efficiency, and customer satisfaction. The Smart Factory network has achieved major sustainability benefits including 21% energy savings achieved at some sites and 377 tonnes of CO2 reduced across the world.
 
How can digital twins be used to enhance sustainability?
As the world transitions towards more sustainable practices, long-term capital projects are witnessing an increase in the value of digital twin technology. AVEVA’s Digital Twin solutions enable value chain optimisation and better asset performance management helping achieve superior performance in carbon neutrality and safety.
 
Enabling a digital twin allows organisations to simulate, test and optimise processes digitally before actioning them in real-world projects. Industrial teams can conserve resources and reduce their emissions, as digital twin technology mitigates costs in the design and build phase of a project.
 
For example, the Department of Water Resources in Gwinnett County, Georgia, USA, manages the purification of drinking water, fresh and grey water services, and the delivery of more than 70m gallons of water per day to more than 1 million residents.
 
Gwinnett worked with AVEVA and its partner to implement a digital twin of operations at multiple sites spanning water production plants, distribution and transmission networks, and hundreds of water collection points.
 
Using AVEVA UOC cloud-based technology, a fully redundancy system historian, Gwinnett created a unified platform that streamlines efficiency and optimises performance, boosting clean-water delivery by 20 percent against rigorous industry standards. The solution also helps target maintenance needs and forecast demand peaks to help ensure safe and efficient drinking water.
 
How has India progressed in the area of industrial sustainability?
India is currently transitioning towards a circular economy, with a strong focus on the principles of recycling, reuse, and reduction. The government has been diligently updating and implementing new regulations to ensure that industries operate in a sustainable manner, and there is a growing commitment among industries to manage their water, waste, and raw materials more effectively. However, beyond industry responsibility, India also has a civic duty towards achieving ESG goals.
 
The United Nations has predicted that 40 percent of the world's population will reside in urban areas by 2030 – that’s over 714 million people. Goal 11 of the UN SDGs is to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. Having recently overtaken China as the world’s most populated country; sustainable urbanisation is a critical part of India’s own sustainability goals in line with the United Nations SDGs.
 
India’s National Smart Cities Mission, as mentioned, is one such initiative that highlights India’s advancement and commitment to sustainability, regionally as well as globally. Smart city innovation is key to India’s long-term sustainability success and as a digital foundation partner of the Smart Cities Mission, we play an important role in India’s progress.
 
Fostering innovative, sustainable, and resilient development, Namchi in Sikkim (also known as Namchi Smart City) worked with AVEVA to create an Integrated Cross-city Command Centre (ICCC) and technology platform, which simplified and optimised municipality services. The city augmented and retrofitted existing city infrastructure to conserve energy. By using smart technology to improve the quality of life for its expanding population, the city has cut energy use by 20 percent and plans to support tourism and drive economic growth. Namchi’s Smart City ICCC solution is now being replicated in similar smart infrastructure projects throughout India in places such as Kohima Smart City and Pimpri Chinchwad Smart City – which I addressed earlier – where it helping set a new standard in sustainable civic innovation while enhancing the quality of life and wellbeing of its citizens.
 
Tell us more about AVEVA Day in India. What can customers and partners expect?
We are hosting AVEVA Day for our customers and partners in Mumbai and New Delhi, where we will share insights on Empowering the Connected Industrial Economy. A key message for us is that sharing data can transform our world. To overcome challenges, industries are building stronger bonds.
 
We are seeing the emergence of new, connected industrial networks, by connecting people across ecosystems to make value chains more agile, profitable, and sustainable. In short, we call this the connected industrial economy. It enables companies to accelerate the low-carbon transition, drive the circular economy and achieve greater resilience and agility in their value chains.
 
Executive leaders and product experts will be present to engage in discussions on how digital innovation can drive sustainability and growth. The event will encompass an exploration of the latest industry trends, and a vibrant exchange of insights, and serve as a platform to cultivate collaborations that will reshape and redefine industrial landscapes.
 
Since sustainability is a huge focus for AVEVA, would you be participating in COP28?
Yes, we will be present at COP28 and join fellow leaders in returning to the annual UN Climate Change Conference to discuss the opportunity and power of digital technologies in driving responsible use of global resources and building net-zero economies. There is an unprecedented urgency to shift towards more sustainable and renewable sources of energy. This transition is impossible for a single government or organisation to achieve in isolation; it is one that requires global collaboration to develop and implement innovative energy solutions.
 
At AVEVA, we’re committed to the highest levels of climate action outlined in the Paris Climate Agreement, embedding sustainability into our operations, our culture, and our core business strategy. Our 2023 Sustainability Progress Report sees four out of our 15 ESG targets for 2025 achieved early, including a 93 percent reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions. We will continue to lead sustainable innovation and work in partnership with others to make a more just, net-zero world a reality for the next generation.
 
COP28 is an important platform for AVEVA, where we can address the effect of climate change on our planet and emphasize how digitalisation can reduce carbon emissions across organisations. Closing the implementation gap on the world’s ambitious decarbonisation commitments presents a major source of economic opportunity for businesses and communities, and digital technologies are integral to building new industries and supply chains that will deliver sustainable growth and create new jobs.