IIoT Offering from ABB and the B&R Acquisition

Automation • IIoT

IIoT Offering from ABB and the B&R Acquisition

Grant Gerke | April 4, 2017

Last month I discussed how IIoT devices and strategies are taking shape in the water and wastewater industry with a recent survey predicting a $20 billion investment for meters, data management, and analytics in the next eight years. Smart water is getting a lot of attention and some analysts think new business outcomes — see Joe Barkai podcast — are emerging, such as water municipalities commercializing IP technology.

ABB recently announced a new, digital asset management initiative called Ability and it will aim for the utility and continuous process space, among others. The company emphasized their asset management platform and the analytical power of Microsoft’s Azure platform. The recent press release says the company is targeting many different industries, including oil and gas, water and wastewater, commercial building and even electric vehicle charging networks.

>> More || Smart Water Infrastructure Continues to Grow, but Real Challenges Persist

ABB’s press release on Ability:

ABB Ability helps customers in utilities, industry, transport and infrastructure develop new processes and advance existing ones by providing insights and optimizing planning and controls for real-time operations. The results can then be fed into control systems to improve key metrics such as factory uptime, speed and yield.

(** As I write this post, ABB just announced that it acquired B&R Automation, and will use these new assets to build on their Ability IIoT-platform and pursue factory manufacturing opportunities.)