Emerson Expands Plantweb Digital Ecosystem

As manufacturers accelerate digital transformation and workforce evolution, Emerson unveiled significant enhancements to its Plantweb digital ecosystem at the Emerson Global Users Exchange conference, held Oct. 2 to 6 in Minneapolis.

“Manufacturing jobs are rapidly becoming data-centric roles, requiring immediately actionable information for experts across the enterprise,” said Peter Zornio, chief technology officer for Emerson Automation Solutions. “Through a deep understanding of customers’ vision for organizational effectiveness and business performance improvement, Emerson is innovating breakthrough products and services to accelerate that organizational transformation.”

A 2017 Industry Week survey of manufacturing leaders revealed more than 60% of those surveyed indicated active pilot projects in IIoT, but only 5% identified clear business objectives at the heart of their programs. Of the 205 industry executives responding, 34% stated that lack of clear technology strategy was a barrier, while 61% confirmed that a scalable approach to investment is preferred.

To address these needs, Emerson introduced extensive enhancements to its Plantweb digital ecosystem portfolio:

• Pervasive Sensing is the foundation of the Plantweb digital ecosystem, providing enhanced visibility into process performance and asset health, so experts have the information needed to drive operational improvements. The portfolio has been expanded to include wireless Rosemount 928 toxic gas and Therm-o-Disc Power Meter monitoring products.

• Secure First Mile provides secure transfer of actionable data from operational-technology (OT) systems to authorized internet-based applications, services, or mobile users. Emerson’s data-security portfolio has been enhanced through certification by ISA Secure, the industry standard for secure systems deployment. Secure First Mile also now works with a variety of standard security models to integrate with customer IT infrastructure and secure connections best suited to the existing technology architecture.

• Plantweb Insight is a scalable and lightweight, web-based software platform that helps users instantly make sense of plant data by leveraging Pervasive Sensing technologies and pre-built analytics to provide relevant-time monitoring and identification of abnormal situations for specific asset classes. Plantweb Insight now includes applications for air-cooled heat exchangers, corrosion, heat exchangers, network management and pressure relief devices.

• Plantweb Advisor is a scalable suite of software applications that use deep analytics to provide reliability and energy specialists with critical information about equipment health and efficiency as well as energy consumption and emissions. Originally introduced as the Energy Advisor, Health Advisor, and Performance Advisor applications, the Plantweb Advisor suite has been expanded to provide analytics applications for metrology and mining.

• Always Aware, formerly known as Always Mobile, is a suite of solutions that builds on previous mobility capabilities. Updates include RFID asset management tags and AMS ARES integration with various interfaces such as AMS Device Manager, AMS Machinery Manager, Plantweb Insight, and Plantweb Advisor to streamline workflows, enhance collaboration, and enable more effective response.

• Services have been expanded to include consulting and service offerings that complement the company’s leading portfolio of automation and IIoT-based technologies. These services provide companies with access to the information and engineering expertise needed to establish a successful path to Top Quartile performance as well as empower their personnel with needed competencies and skillsets.