Skkynet | Data Anywhere

After a year of uncertainty, confusion, and disruption, suddenly people are talking about sustainability. Public opinion, government policy, and economic realities seem to be converging on this theme, pushing us towards creating a more sustainable future. The pandemic has underscored the need for us to be more effective and resilient in many ways. For industry, this points to digitization.

At a recent AVEVA World Digital event, Craig Hayman, AVEVA CEO said, “As business leaders, it’s our duty to go further and faster than we believed possible to realize a sustainable future through digital transformation.” Summing it up, he calls this the “Decade to Deliver.”

He is talking about delivering on the promises of Industrial IoT, of Industrie 4.0, and digitization. We are at a critical juncture. Many people are looking for jobs, and there is lots of work to be done. Thankfully, we have developed the necessary technologies, ready for use.

Staying connected

“Covid-19 is a massive catalyzer of digital adoption, because people want to be more efficient, we want to be more resilient. Therefore, things have to be connected, ” said Jean-Pascal Tricoire, Chairman and CEO of Schneider Electric, in that same on-line conference. “We want to operate things from remote, to enforce social distancing. ”

The need is there, and so are the resources. “All of this has been accelerated, ” continued Tricoire, “by the massive recovery packages like no other in history, put in place by countries, and a large part of those are about digital and green. Because countries have understood that you can’t dissociate a step-change to sustainability from digitization. ”

In the AVEVA World Digital presentations, the links from digital to sustainable were made clear through example after example. Emerging technologies for carbon capture, plant optimization, circular systems, remote access, solar parks, wind farms, decentralized power grids, and more―all rely heavily on digitized data communications. Since most CO₂ emissions come from industry, transportation, and buildings, securely connecting them in real time to IT platforms empowered by AI promises to make them greener and more sustainable.

The Great Acceleration

Mike Walsh, futurist, author, and CEO of Tomorrow explained how the pandemic has opened new opportunities. It has unleashed, in his words, “the great acceleration. ” We are now living a full decade ahead of the predictions, he says, in a space that we could only imagine twelve months ago. He sees three rules in play:

It is no longer “digital disruption, ” now it’s digital delivery. We are all disruptors now. If you are not a digital business, you are no longer in business.
There is no such thing as “remote work”, just work. Each of us has more mobility and autonomy than ever before, and that will require documenting our decision-making, relying on data, and acting on it more quickly.
AI will not destroy jobs, but it will change them. Rather than doing work, we will be increasingly called upon to design work. We will need to bring more of our humanity to the table.

Who would have guessed that a global pandemic would accelerate a need for digitization? Whatever the reason, all this digital data needs to be connected, and this is where Skkynet shines. We have the tools and experience to meet current and future demand for the secure, real-time data communications used in remote access and the convergence of OT, IT and the cloud. We are playing our part to help ensure a more sustainable future for industry and for the planet.

The industrialized world is still reeling from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it may not be going away any time soon. We may not like it, but we are learning how to live with it. And some of us are looking ahead to see what the long-term impacts might be. Is the future darker or brighter?

IndustryWeek magazine recently published an article by Artem Kroupenev, Vice President of Strategy at Augury, who asks the question: What Will Manufacturing’s New Normal Be After COVID-19? The answer, he opines, involves healthy doses of automation, digitization, and remote access.

He notes that many companies saw supply chains break and raw material stocks dry up as countries closed borders. Those relying on just-in-time production were hit especially hard. In the same way, whole countries experienced shortages of manufactured goods that could not be imported.

To protect against future disruptions, Kroupenev predicts a revival in domestic manufacturing, and a decoupling of supply chains. But things will be different from 20 or 30 years ago. There will be a strong push, he says, towards automation in the new domestic industries, and companies will rely far more on digitization to manage supply chains.

A Key to Success

A vital key to success in this new reality will be data, and the ability to send and receive it securely across the Internet. “For manufacturing, greater connectivity will mean significantly accelerated deployment of Industrial IoT, including sensing, data visualization, remote collaboration tools and AI-based insights across their operations,” Kroupenev said. “Control-tower view of data and insights across the whole operation will become a standard component of running a manufacturing organization.”

Even before the pandemic, early adopters of digitization had gained an average 7% revenue growth advantage, according to a McKinsey report cited in the article. They have been able to increase efficiency through better supply chain integration, more effective operations, and more flexible maintenance programs. They have made the transition to remote access more smoothly. Companies that do not adopt this new normal will suffer, says Kroupenev, and may eventually fail.

Embracing the new normal does not need to be difficult. Skkynet’s software and services work equally well with legacy systems as new installations. There is no reason to take risks. Something as simple as making a standard-protocol connection to a secure, proven technology can transport a company into a safer, more reliable world.