A Time for Industrial Superheroes: GE Digital User Conference 2020 – Day 2 Recap

Welcome back industrial superheroes! Day 2 of the 2020 GE Digital User Conference was another day packed with information and solutions to inspire your own digital transformation journeys.

Colin Parris, our Chief Technology Officer, delivered a thought-provoking keynote on “The Future of Digital” where his focus was on delivering business value. We’re reminded that Digital Twins aren’t just about software – they are a part of a transformation journey that includes not only assets, but systems and processes and people. In short, digital transformation requires business process transformation. GE Digital has 20 years of expertise in delivering asset digital twins – such as a gas turbine; network digital twins – such as an electrical grid and process digital twins – such as the process used by manufacturers.

Colin also provided an overview on three emerging technologies; Humble AI, Digital Ghosts, and Twins that talk. Respectively, these technologies help businesses manage adoption, risk, and acceleration. Finally, Colin ended on business implementation and how a combination of lean + digital can lead to business value. We’ll be sharing a link to his keynote in the coming days, so you can share with those who weren’t able to attend.   

No organization can afford to digitize waste. Betsy Bingham, Lean & Operations Leader at GE Digital, shared a roadmap for taking friction out of the work process by bringing the principles of lean and digital transformation together. Going deeper on a topic that Colin raised, Betsy shared a roadmap for how you could apply the lean + digital approach to your organization.

It’s our pleasure to layout a vision for the future, but it is our responsibility to provide a roadmap and path to get there.  Today we announced several product innovations that will advance our customers’ journeys in new ways.

We are pleased to share the follow product announcements: Visual Intelligence for Electric Utilities, Operations Performance Management for the Power Generation industry, and upgrades to industry-leading Digital Plant solutions: Proficy Operations Hub, iFIX HMI/SCADA, Proficy Historian, and Proficy Plant Applications.

One of our favorite parts of the User Conference is learning from our customers who are leading the way to digital transformation across the globe. Today, we heard many stories of triumph and optimization.

Hennie Engelbrecht, Principal Engineer, Metallurgy, Exxaro Resources and Marnus Olivier Lead Advanced Process Control Engineer, Wabtec explored Exxaro’s plant stabilization strategy. Exxaro operates seven coal plants in South Africa. Their advance process controllers now evaluate plant operations every two seconds. With better insight they have increased throughput 8-10%.

Saudi Aramco’s Lead Engineer, Basil Milibari, isn’t sitting still either. They are on a mission to not only use technology, but to become a technology provider by immersing themselves in digital transformation. Basil showcased the power of real-time predictive analytics.

Paper and pulp giant, Navigator, has found ways to enhance operational efficiency across a wide spectrum of asset conditions. Paula Branco, Asset Perfrmance Management (APM) Project Manager and Reliability Team Leader and Pedro Conceiçã Asset Management and Maintenance Corporate Coordinator shared the challenges of building an asset policy when some equipment is forty years old, and some are brand new. Getting it right has really paid off with 7.2% cost reduction resulting from the first phase of their project.

Ranko Stojakovic, Head of Grid Operations, at Stedin stepped us through the challenges of grid stability, as usage patterns become more volatile. They’ve teamed together with other energy providers on a connected energy trading platform, GO PACS, that hopes to eliminate waste and drive consistent stability for all participants.

The airline industry has been hit hard by COVID-19 and the reduction in air travel. Most airlines are running at 35%-40% of 2019 levels. It’s been a challenge and airlines are rising to that challenge. Aircraft Records Manager, Lori Sikora, at Republic Airways talked about the ways the crisis has driven an urgency for digital transformation change. Just last week Republic Airways delivered an aircraft with no physical paperwork for the first time – everything was completely digital. That’s an extraordinary leap forward.

We even enjoyed a fireside chat between Americas Styrenics (AmSty) CIO Laura Tibodeau and Linda Rae General Manager of our Power Generation and Oil & Gas business. AmSty, is a leading integrated producer of polystyrene and styrene monomer. Among the many products they support, there is particularly demand for COVID-19 test kits.  Laura believes digital transformation is a key enabler to business transformation and talked through how their organization is investing in automating workflows and using AI.

We hope this sample of content entices you to make use of the on-demand sessions you may have missed.

We’re not done yet. The third day of the conference was jam-packed with more goodness. Read our recap.