Bart Dubbelboer explains why UK businesses should embrace the Industrial Internet of Things to improve their asset management and performance analytics activities.

If a utility operator in 1970 were to see into the future and catch a glimpse of today’s energy architecture, they would no doubt be amazed by the proliferation of digital technology in utility infrastructures.

However, it’s likely they would also be disappointed by the lack of progress in information systems and operational tools to accommodate these new digital technologies. Take enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems for example – we are still using the systems that were installed in the 1990s to manage physical assets, resulting in limited access to the data modelling capabilities offered by modern power automation systems.

New and improved

New, improved systems that make the most of connected, Internet of Things (IoT) innovation have been developed that allow utilities to manage their networks in a much more flexible manner. Modern electricity utilities have also acquired software systems to manage their operational assets and support their key business processes.

At the centre of this perfect storm, the convergence of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) systems has come to the fore, offering a means to support future-ready integrated business processes for smarter utilities – from field operations to enterprise information.

Once treated as separate domains, IT and OT intersect to enable more efficient and reliable utility operations, directed and empowered by data. At the intersection of IT and OT convergence, there are two systems in particular that have evolved along with the advancement of smart grids – outage management systems (OMSs) and asset management systems (AMSs).

Utilities must consider their approach to these systems if they want to harness the IT-OT evolution to improve network reliability, safety and customer satisfaction. And utilities must now adopt an enterprise-wide asset performance management strategy to improve significantly.

Enabled by the convergence of IT and OT, the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) is accelerating next generation energy-management and automation processes that can increase operational efficiency, energy efficiency, and process agility.

Driving the enterprise

IIoT helps drive the enterprise asset performance management programmes. By leveraging digitisation, IIoT improves asset management and performance, simplifies operational processes, heightens operational efficiency, and engenders proactive and agile operations across the network. Consider, for example, that a smart grid network lets an operator see in real time and in immersive 3D where there is an outage, whether a power failure is about to happen and where the risk is.

As such, today’s utility companies need to ensure they are on the right road towards a new energy future and bridge the gap between previously siloed IT management and operations technology.

With the help of smarter, more connected technology, and the use of harmonised IT-OT systems to extract greater value from existing assets, there is an exciting opportunity for utilities to maximise the benefits from the smart grid to balance the increasing energy demand with global sustainability targets.

What is IIOT?

The Industrial Internet of Things has been heralded primarily as a way to improve operational efficiency. But in today’s environment, companies can also benefit greatly by seeing it as a tool for finding growth in unexpected opportunities.

In the future, successful companies will use the Industrial Internet of Things to capture new growth through three approaches: boosting revenues by increasing production and creating new hybrid business models, exploiting intelligent technologies to fuel innovation, and transforming the workforce.