Finding a trusted partner: how two companies achieved successful transformation with Schneider Electric and AVEVA

Co-authored by:

Peter Herweck, EVP, Schneider Electric Industrial Automation, is in charge of Schneider Electric's global Industrial Automation Business since 2016. He has extensive experience in Automation, Digitization and Industrial Software. Peter started his career at Mitsubishi in Japan and after joining Siemens held several executive positions in Factory and Process Automation and headed Corporate Strategy. Craig Hayman, CEO, AVEVA, joined AVEVA in February 2018 as Chief Executive Officer. Previously he was Chief Operating Officer at PTC, where he had responsibility for engineering, marketing, and sales of the ThingWorx® platform, as well as computer aided design, and product lifecycle management solutions. Craig also served as President of the Solutions Group at PTC, where he led a resurgence in core solutions businesses, while driving sales of the company's IoT technology platform.

As more enterprises enter the implementation stages of their digital transformation projects, they are searching for productivity improvements. They want to run their complex operations better. They are good at their role, they are good at sourcing goods and services, but they are still driven to run the business in a more efficient way. By applying digital tools to that problem, they can find productivity improvement. Retail has been transformed by digital technology. Industry is at the beginning of that journey. It's hard to see how to drive those productivity gains that are close at hand but not in plain sight. Industrial businesses want a trusted partner to show them how they can use proven patterns to drive productivity gains. Those that have seen the way they can now operate, spot further opportunities for transformation and improvement.

In this second blog post of a three-part series, Craig Hayman, CEO, AVEVA and Peter Herweck, Executive Vice President, Schneider Electric Industrial Automation discuss the diverse approaches customers are taking towards successful digital transformation.

Q: Can you highlight some examples of the ways your customers are deploying digital transformation to drive productivity gains?

Peter Herweck: Across the board, we see a high level of interest in people who want to quickly move their digital agenda forward. There are some examples of early adopters that stand out. One of these is Anglian Water, the largest water supply and water recycling utility in England and Wales. They service six million commercial and residential customers and manage 1.1 billion liters of water flowing through their network every day.

Q: What drove Anglian Water to pursue a digital transformation?

Craig Hayman:Anglian Water needed to improve its efficiency and operating procedures - this meant the team needed to leverage vast volumes of data to run the company more efficiently, prevent water leakage, cut energy bills and streamline operations. This smarter, more digitized business model would also improve customer experience.

Our solution in partnership with Anglian Water went beyond just stopping leakages. Our comprehensive combined product roadmap better aligned with Anglia Water's strategic thinking. They needed a partner who could help them build a centralized source for data analysis and decision support. In addition, Anglian made it a priority to select an integrated solution that could facilitate interfaces between various SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) and enterprise systems. They considered that our offering was more integrated than others on the market.

Q: How did your combined solutions help to transform their business?

Craig Hayman: Anglian Water's integrated leakage and pressure management system (ILPM) was designed to manage water leakage and optimize field operations. In the past they would deploy teams of analysts to pull data from 30 different systems. This was a complex, labor intensive and error prone process. Now they can perform the same task from one central location. And they can interrogate their data in ways never before possible. They monitor incoming system performance data on a near real-time basis and can visualize water flows as they occur out in the network. They can also recognize where system fixes are being applied and where work is still outstanding. They can now find and repair leaks much faster than in the past. With the AVEVA and Schneider system in place, their operations management team has been able to reduce leakage by 10 million liters of water per day. These improvements are better for the environment, for customers and for network operations.

Q: Where does Anglian Water go from here to continue building productivity gains?

Peter Herweck: Their analysts now use the AVEVA software as a business-critical system. As new tags and sensors get attached to the network every day, this solution keeps adding more value. As the access to data increases, real-time analysis and decision support continues to improve thereby assuring their six million customers uninterrupted access to safe, clean water.

Q: What's another example of a customer who has successfully digitized their business operations?

Craig Hayman:Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), one of the world's leading energy producers, successfully created a digital twin of their entire operation, using Schneider Electric and AVEVA software as their technology backbone. With a system implemented in under eight weeks, we today help ADNOC maximize value from their operations by collecting and interpreting their data and providing actionable insights that drive real world efficiencies. To achieve their digitization goals, we helped them to allocate, centralize and integrate all their data into a single platform.

Q: What specifically did ADNOC implement?

Peter Herweck: ADNOC built what they call their Panorama Digital Command Center. It is a fully integrated, real-time data visualization system that empowers ADNOC's sharpest minds to gain insights, unlock efficiencies, and identify new pathways to optimize performance. Panorama is a 50-meter (164 foot) screen that allows visibility to more than 120 dashboards that display 200,000 data points and that integrate 14 of their operating companies. AVEVA software enables integration across various ERP, business, and IT applications and provides actionable insights. The system integrates data across the entire value chain - covering Upstream oil and gas production, gas processing, refining and petrochemical production - across a single platform. They also use predictive maintenance to empower their teams to reduce unscheduled downtime and to prevent costly equipment failures. They have over 10 million sensors in their facilities and over 700 compressors tied into the system.

Q: What are some of the tangible benefits ADNOC has experienced?

Craig Hayman: A key element is the value chain optimization, which is accomplished through an AVEVA integrated production planning model. ADNOC can switch from their standalone model (the digital twin) and their live network model. As a result, the Panorama Digital Command Center enables millions in annual savings as a result of optimized operations.

Stay tuned for the final blog post from this series to keep learning about how Schneider Electric and AVEVA can jumpstart your digitization projects and help drive business growth!

Read the first post of the series here:

• Ask the Experts: How to accelerate your digital journey thanks to a unique Industry Partnership