With new innovations such as Industry 4.0 and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), as well as the need for all modern plants to be fully digitised in order to connect with their many data points, it’s no secret that UK manufacturing is changing, with today’s companies contending with more operational challenges than ever before. And these challenges, along with rising energy costs, means operating a plant is now more expensive than ever.

One area where manufacturers can make savings is through their energy expenditure, but becoming energy efficient is easier said than done, as it requires manufacturers to combine regulatory and commercial considerations. However, this is now such an important issue that effectual energy management has become a business necessity, to which unlocking the hidden value of big data holds the key

New directive. 

The issue is likely to become even more important next year as a result of the planned change to the Ecodesign Directive on 1st January 2018. The Ecodesign Directive, which governs all energy-related products including chillers and industrial coolers, is set to impose strict new Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) for industrial process cooling systems. The new benchmark for an industrial process chiller will be its Seasonal Energy Performance Ratios (SEPR). Minimum SEPRs will be calculated as the ratio between the annual refrigeration demand and its annual electricity consumption.

In manufacturing facilities, energy consumption can be reduced by using cutting-edge automated technologies and through improved monitoring and control of energy used in infrastructure. For many plant managers, the thought of completely upgrading the infrastructure is unfeasible, but, with the right platform in place, businesses can develop a stronger, more insightful understanding of their operations, with the ability to visualise energy usage and instantly identify inefficiencies. 

Digitisation improvements within industrial automation are allowing the transfer and collection of greater volumes of operational data across the plant floor, and these developments should help manufacturers monitor both energy and efficiency levels. However, not all plants are able to utilise this potential insight and, moreover, many are finding themselves limited by the lifecycle of their current industrial applications instead. 

Realistically, connecting plant assets with control and business systems demands specialised personnel resources and development time. Likewise, application development, deployment and re-engineering considerably increase project costs across the entire lifecycle application. With these issues in mind, along with IIoT-enabled applications which need expert scripting and customisation, it’s really not as simple as just saying ‘let’s digitise.’ 

Despite this, there are solutions out there, with the latest platforms, such as Wonderware’s System Platform 2017, able to efficiently bridge the gap between OT and IT worlds. System Platform 2017 helps companies take full advantage of increased IIoT connectedness and digitisation within a centralised, multi-user collaboration framework.

Engineers can use System Platform’s powerful drag and drop application building and remote deployment capabilities to deliver engineering efficiency. Operations managers also benefit, achieving contextualised situational awareness by delivering out-of-the-box content and process visualisation standards, simplifying the task of achieving the optimal situational awareness of industrial processes.

The easy availability and analysis of data can effectively transform the way a company works, offering a better understanding of energy use, while also predicting and managing performance and expenditure. With so much of this data already available and locked in process data historians, accessing it is merely about beginning with the correct foundation.