Aveva has been growing as an information technology consulting company since last 60 years. “In 2016, we launched the new process simulation products for new generation customers. Two years ago, we launched AVEVA data hub which has been now rebranded as AVEVA Connect,” informed Naveen Kumar, Vice President, Chemicals, Natural Resources and Manufacturing, AVEVA. 

During his presentation on ‘Industry 4.0 and Digital Transformation, a Global Perspective’ at the CIO Connect 2024 conference organized by Indian Chemical News (ICN) recently in Mumbai, Kumar explained technical details around the implementation of digital solutions by the chemical industry. 

“The digital implementation has many layers. The bottom most layer has all the assets and devices. The next layer is getting the information together, be it engineering information or operational information. Engineering information could be engineering design, 3D models, and data sheets. The layer above is what we call as application analytics and we break it into the three parts, i.e. design, operate and optimize. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has really been taken up in a lot of areas though I believe Industrial AI is still in infancy. At AVEVA, we have been using AI for many years and we have products based on statistical data models. If they were developed today then we have a whole partner ecosystem and similar experience that we bring through AVEVA Connect again. We have some more detail around production; simulation; learning engineering execution, asset performance, operation and optimization; planning and scheduling; and data sharing." 

Explaining the industry trends, Kumar opined that there is a significant impact of geopolitical events and geopolitical instability. With Donald Trump winning the US elections recently, there is an ongoing analysis on how it would impact the industry and everyone is preparing for it. “The industry is moving to low carbon operation and there is talk about sustainable operations, circularity of supply chain, clean hydrogen and biofuels and investing in new products. In Europe, there is a new regulation CBAM (Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism) that will start next year. From the chemical industry point of view, there are only two products: fertilizers and hydrogen, which are impacted right now. However, by 2034, almost everything would be impacted,” he said adding that another trend is that as a company when we talk about sustainability we also need to make money from it. 

Citing example, Kumar said that this is reflected in the recent announcements. “Bharat Petroleum is an example where they have shelved thirteen different green hydrogen projects and one of the biggest renewable companies have shelved their hydrogen project in their renewable refinery after completing the basic engineering design package. The Sustainable Aviation Fuel project in Singapore by Axon was shelved after committing hundreds of millions of dollars for procurement.” 

Talking about the latest focus areas of the chemical industry, Kumar opined: “The digital and artificial intelligence are becoming very important. Data is really the feedstock for all the innovation and operational excellence, specifically in chemicals. Looking at India, I think the petrochemical utilization rate is suppressed because of all the capacity that is coming in China. The industry is not really coming out of shell by 2030.  While the trends are going to change, there will be ups and downs in the next five years. There is a need for effective power management and diversification, moving to more biodiversity and circular products. The chemical companies are already putting focus on efficiency chemistry, service optionality creation and stronger commitment to sustainability.” 

On the outcome of the surveys done by his company recently to understand the customers’ expectations, Kumar said: “In one of the surveys we asked them about the top priorities for operation access in the next 12 months. The answer was most sustainable operation at almost 60%.  On the questions of greatest industry challenges, companies aren’t talking about transition to net zero but survival issues such as raw material price and supply, chain logistics, customer requirements, skill shortage energy.  In terms of software solution currently being used to achieve operational excellence, the customers put the data management right on the top. The amount of data is growing with each year and we need to find ways of making sense out of it. One of the key statistics coming out from the analysis is that the 70% of industrial companies are failing digital transformation.” 

Talking about his company's offerings, Kumar said: “d. is a fully integrated hybrid solution for seamlessly managing operations data across the modern industrial enterprise: at the industrial edge, across multiple on-premises sites and in the cloud. We have launched a number of products such as AVEVA Advanced Analytics; AVEVA Manufacturing Execution System (earlier called Wonderware MES); AVEVA Asset Information Management to cccelerate information discovery and break down silos for fast, intuitive, in-context access to relevant data. Customers are looking at engineering, operations, and developers. With multiple sites that most chemical companies have, you are getting into across the ecosystem, with more silos being created at different plants. If I have a product being manufactured at two different sites, I can see the two reactor performance simultaneously on the same graph. I can make a lot out of it to see what is going on and what is going wrong. But today we cannot see that as it creates a very complex ecosystem. Then you start talking about connecting data and people whether within a company or across the ecosystem. You are looking at a lot of interconnection of data and this is what we call a connected industrial economy.  Most advantages of industries are industrial data and sharing. When you talk about energy transition you are looking at hydrogen networks and renewable energy. If you are looking at getting green hydrogen and then you have the energy crate and then when you get all of this, you are talking about green steel, green chemical, and consumer products. This is what I would look at from a connected economy point of view. We have all of this because when I talk about green energy and green hydrogen, I need to get renewable power which is dependent on wind and solar. It is all about the connected industrial economy." 

Kumar continued, "What makes the AVEVA PI Data Infrastructure so different from anything else that exists today, firstly is the data archive. A lot of times people use the term data histories, that is the data historian part of it and this is where it is different from anything else, because this historian is just one part of our solution. The next part of the solution is AVEVA SX, a refining process in AVEVA's industrial software portfolio which is adding context to the structure and meaningful data to your asset. For example, we have a pump that will bring all the data related reforms together. When you look at the pump you don't need to look at it separately for temperature lag, operation lag and so on. Then we can start doing the analytics and we are already translating the data into actionable KPI.  We can start doing real time calculations and start tracking those as this is automatic. For example, if we are running a batch, it can help you identify the batch changes and then we start talking about automatic alerts or notification which we call as infrastructure. So data infrastructure that we have created for you where historians are just the first part of it and a lot of value is actually coming once you move further." 

“We need to have a connected industrial economy that is going to generate a large amount of data. Adoption of AI and sustainability are going to have a lot of increase in amount of robust data. Infrastructure is an essential foundation and our strategy is to provide the seamless data infrastructure from individual plants to the whole community. That is the strategy we are trying to follow and that is what we are trying to help you implement,” Kumar concluded. 

Themed ‘Connected Chemical Plant and Industry 4.0’ the CIO Connect 2024 was held in association with AVEVA and Grassdoor.