IMC-2017 RAP Talk - 22:05
by Chris Barron, Bentley

Historian and Professor, Yuval Noah Harar once wrote (Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow) "In ancient times having power meant having access to data. Today having power means knowing what to ignore.”

The industrial internet of things (IIoT) represents a huge opportunity in the availability and quality of data from connected devices, but a huge challenge for operators and maintainers in dealing with the deluge of information. Most organizations simply aren’t ready, and either don’t have the systems in place to do it or the people or skills associated.

We believe the answer lies in greater Servitization. This is not a new idea – Rolls Royce aero engines is the flagship example, from selling turbines to selling thrust-as-a-service – but it’s not easy for many companies to translate this to their business. In essence ‘Servitization’ is a digital transformation journey, involving firms developing the capabilities they need to provide and receive services and solutions that supplement their traditional approaches.

Gartner describes the trend towards increasing collaboration between owners, operators, service providers and OEMs. It is no coincidence then that this has been the year of Alliances for Bentley – with announcements with Microsoft, Siemens, TopCon and BV.

Through its AssetWise platform, Bentley is facilitating and enabling greater Servitization – converging and connecting data essential to understanding asset performance, embedding vendor knowledge and expertise, visualizing and putting data in context to enable better decisions. And in areas such as process manufacturing, energy management and power generation, OEMs are embedding their expertise and knowhow, providing a data-efficient expert system approach to compliment data-intensive diagnostic approaches.

This is freeing up organizations to focus on what’s most important to them, and giving them the power to ignore more!