For UK manufacturers, energy consumption is a serious issue. Current legislation is aimed at reducing energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in the UK by 2050. As a result, the pressure on UK manufacturers to be accountable for their energy consumption has never been higher, with organisations obliged to share their energy usage data with third party companies in order to prove compliance, with those that fail to do so running the risk of significant penalties.
So what can organisations do to ensure they don’t fall foul of the regulations?
Put simply, organisations need to make full use of their operational data by using an Industrial Information Management (IIM) solution.
Today, collecting and analysing large amounts of data is easier than ever before, as is using the results to unearth previously hidden insights into areas of industrial environments that might otherwise have been overlooked. Doing this also allows companies to make operational improvement decisions with greater confidence.
An IIM solution enables this by providing access to both real-time and historical data from multiple sources, allowing operational data to be contextualised and delivered to operators’ desktop or mobile devices instantly, even across multiple sites, and enabling metrics such as energy usage to be monitored at the touch of a button.
By taking steps to help organisations identify operational trends, an IIM solution also enables operators to address any issues immediately, troubleshoot problems before they occur and ensure they don’t happen again. As a result, the IIM solution also makes it easier to fully understand how and where energy is being used, as well as what changes need to be made in order to improve energy efficiency.
Furthermore, an IIM solution allows you to bridge the IT/OT gap, by allowing islands of operational data from across your plant, that may have previously been inaccessible, to be automatically collated and displayed in a format that is easy for all departments to understand and analyse.
This convergence of IT/OT is essential if manufacturers are to stay competitive and embrace IIoT technologies.