• What experience does GE have in telematics outside of the transportation industry, and how do you apply that knowledge to asset intelligence solutions?
• Why does your global telematics experience position GE as the clear choice for asset intelligence solutions?
• How can I ensure that the VeriWise platform will be compatible with my network? Is the VeriWise platform integrated with other systems to ensure interoperability?
• Do you guarantee a platform continuum? If so, is the platform flexible enough to evolve to address emerging standards?
• What infrastructure investments do you have in place to guarantee service reliability?
• Tell me about the analytics capabilities of the VeriWise solution. What trends or types of data are you seeing and where do you see analytics and decision support in the future?
• Given that the VeriWise solution scales across asset types, what sorts of synergies are you able to leverage while developing these solutions that would be hard to do otherwise?
• How do I integrate VeriWise data into my current business systems? Will I receive support or assistance with this?
• How does the Global Research Center uniquely position GE as a thought leader in telematics and fleet management solutions?

 

1. What experience does GE have in telematics outside of the transportation industry, and how do you apply that knowledge to asset intelligence solutions?

GE has telematics expertise in numerous areas outside transportation, including healthcare (in mobile magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI), energy (in portable generators) and water (in mobile water treatment systems).

GE Healthcare has an application that manages our mobile, super-cooled MRI magnets and alerts the Healthcare Service Center if the temperature rises, which could cause the valuable liquid helium to boil off. We expanded and customized this capability for our VeriWise Asset Intelligence system, to deliver temperature and helium sensing capabilities for mobile assets.

The effectiveness of our telematics solution for the energy industry came to light during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. When most assets couldn’t even function following the devastation, VeriWise technology-equipped trailers and generators not only functioned but also relayed information and assisted in getting basic services to the victims of Katrina. Additionally, the robustness and effectiveness of our satellite network has been proven during 10 years of mobile applications within the GE Locomotive business.

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2. Why does your global telematics experience position GE as the clear choice for asset intelligence solutions?

Global support is key to the GE Asset Intelligence strategy, as shown by our recent launch in Mexico as well as new product introductions in Europe. LEO satellites and global cellular protocols were designed specifically to meet global coverage needs.

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3. How can I ensure that the VeriWise platform will be compatible with my network? Is the VeriWise platform integrated with other systems to ensure interoperability?

Open standards are very important to our business at GE. We use extensible markup language (XML) that conforms to both the Rail AAR and Trailer TMC standards, facilitating the easy interchange of information. GE Asset Intelligence has given speeches about the advantages of open standards and champions the advantages of an open communications standard.

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4. Do you guarantee a platform continuum? If so, is the platform flexible enough to evolve to address emerging standards?

GE has long supported the use of open standards. Meta XML models are key to delivery and platform flexibility. GE Asset Intelligence is confident in our ability to deliver a quality platform and an ideal solution. We are trying to establish open standards beyond data communications and look forward to the day when wireless hardware becomes a commodity and we are able to offer interchangeable connectors, antennas and other components.

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5. What infrastructure investments do you have in place to guarantee service reliability?

We monitor quality daily – that entails monitoring all of our assets. Our president meets weekly with the leadership staff to review the quality and discuss where we can improve results – with our benchmark being 98.7%. Continuous performance improvements are real, and we are always challenged to improve numbers week to week. Currently we use products that meet or exceed SAE requirements and own the certificates for obtaining the toughest (and most expensive to test) UL913 intrinsically safe certification for our rail products.

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6. Tell me about the analytics capabilities of the VeriWise solution. What trends or types of data are you seeing and where do you see analytics and decision support in the future?

Ultimately, the value of our products in the analytics. Starting with event-based actionable data, analytics assists the logistics professionals in making critical decisions on their fleet. We currently take 100,000-plus data records per day and perform analytics to visualize customer improvements to date and to take our super sensor data and mine, transform and optimize information for customer-specific areas of interest.

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7. Given that the VeriWise solution scales across asset types, what sorts of synergies are you able to leverage while developing these solutions that would be hard to do otherwise?

We currently leverage solutions across GE Sensing, GE Research, GE Water, GE Health Care, GE Power, GE Fleet, GE Trailer Fleet Services and GE PMG. GE’s customers benefit from GE’s breadth of expertise and knowledge sharing.

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8. How do I integrate VeriWise data into my current business systems? Will I receive support or assistance with this?

Customers can obtain our data through the VeriWise/FleetView or VeriWise/RAIL websites or an XML feed. We work with several integrators to make asset data available in a form that easily flows in and out of customers’ logistics and ERP systems. Customers receive help in integrating this data – in fact, we worked with a major retailer on a two-way XML DTD and also worked closely with AAR and TMC to integrate data standards.

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9. How does the Global Research Center uniquely position GE as a thought leader in telematics and fleet management solutions?

Our Global Research Center (GRC) is a tremendous resource for GE, and we leverage ­ both cross-business and original work performed there. We routinely hold brainstorming sessions with the Fortune 100 and share the findings with our customers. No competitor even gets close to leveraging this type of human knowledge. GE is the clear leader in the area of applied R&D.

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