Furthermore, Evonik will be involved in the research and development of artificial intelligence (AI) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): Evonik is the world’s first chemical company to participate at the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab.

In this unique interplaying at the MIT campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, experts from academia and industry are investigating the potential uses and effects of artificial intelligence. “Bright minds from science and business are working jointly together on digital progress. We are delighted to be part of it,” says Henrik Hahn, chief digital officer (CDO) of Evonik.

AI is a useful tool for innovation and improvements in the chemical industry. Evonik looks forward to joining the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab and its advisory board to contribute its ideas and applications across materials discovery, formulation technology, knowledge management and market analysis to advance overall applications of AI in the chemical industry. “The work on artificial intelligence is also a litmus test of what digital systems can do: For example, we are looking at how decisions can be made better, more systematically and faster with the help of algorithms,” says Hahn. “Ultimately, it’s about the value AI can add to the company,” he says.

Hahn takes a positive view of the strategic partnership with IBM, which has already been active since 2017: “The joint work has helped to drive forward digital transformation in a targeted manner. Evonik sees itself as a pioneer in digitization in the chemical industry. Our partnership with IBM and our new commitment to the MIT-IBM Watson AI Lab further substantiate this claim.”

As part of the partnership, Evonik and IBM have already investigated new possibilities to create a collaborative intelligence between humans and machines, in pilot projects. Experts no longer have to search for valuable information like for a needle in a haystack. Instead, decades of knowledge are now easy to search and to analyze intuitively. New connections between data can now be found. Chemist can intuitively explore and compare formulations and their related properties to come up with ideas for new products.

Evonik and IBM have also succeeded in building Artificial Intelligence that will further accelerate the research for new materials. In close collaboration with IBM Research a Deep Neural Network was developed and trained that predicts properties or new formulations for high-performance polymers. These predictions help researchers like a compass pointing them in promising directions for new products and customer solutions.

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Simply put, digitalization is the leveraging of digital technologies to transform an existing or proposed process setup into a digital framework. Energy management is one area poised to greatly benefit from cutting-edge digital technologies.

Along with key aspects related to general digitalization, this article describes how organizations can improve their production and energy efficiencies by using digital tools and techniques, and also includes vital inputs from industry experts.

The market is flooded with tools to reduce and control energy intensity. However, many large organizations are still reluctant to invest in such capabilities.  At times, this reluctance is due to the lack of knowledge and awareness of the best suitable tools, while some cite budgetary constraints and others veer away due to lack of management focus and enthusiasm (possibly due to lack of clarity regarding expected returns on investment). Even with powerful tools at their disposal, many corporations may still question why to digitalize when they already have an established setup. The benefits are multifaceted, including the following:

• Easing general system burdens
• Making processes more systematic
• Making useful insights easier to retrieve and comprehend
• Streamlining resource optimization and analyses
• Improving stability and efficiency

For these reasons, digitalization is increasingly becoming ubiquitous and successfully adopted in many spheres of life, from the manufacturing sector to transportation, healthcare and even government entities.

Laying the technological foundation

The proliferation of digital technologies is highlighted by the International Energy Agency (IEA; Paris, France) in its Energy Efficiency 2019 report, which shows that that between 2015 and 2018, growth in digital activity outpaced both population and economic growth. The number of digital devices globally increased from 15.5 billion to 20 billion. This growth, of around 8% per year, was much higher than population growth (1.1%) or economic growth (3.5%). IEA further highlights that the global primary energy intensity (an indicator of energy used by the global economy) improved by just 1.2%, the slowest rate since 2010.

Many in the CPI are already reinventing and restructuring growth strategies, including the use of high-end, digital, value-added services to supplement existing product offerings. Various digital platforms that have become prevalent in the CPI are shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. There are numerous interconnected digital technologies that are contributing to the CPI’s digitalization journey

Digital twins: As industries are now moving from steady-state to dynamic process optimization and control, a critical tool is the digital twin, a real-time dynamic model that runs parallel to an operating plant. This dynamic model populates data from devices installed in the plant to match the plant's realtime status and operating condition and accordingly carries out offline dynamic studies for optimizing plant performance.

Smart sensors: Thanks to the wide variety of smart sensors, and their capabilities to continuously measure process values, record data and trigger alarms, it is easier than ever for engineers to plan ahead and take timely corrective actions. In turn, these capabilities also save energy by enabling online process improvements and better-planned machine overhauls and preventing sudden outages.

Process simulation: With emphasis on cost optimization and tightening environmental standards, many CPI companies have deployed advanced process simulators in applications ranging from pilot-scale and laboratory trials to large-scale commercial processes. Besides offering training, these simulators provide realtime data for predicting performance and optimization. In some cases, process licensors have collaborated with simulation developers and now offer a comprehensive package during the commissioning of new plants. These packages validate and reconcile data, enable virtual sensing and offer predictive control.

Before embarking on a digitalization journey with such advanced tools, it is important to consider the "ABCDs" of digitalization, and the ways that human interactions form the foundation for an effective digital transformation.

Agility:  This feature of digitalization must be present in both the human mindset and the process being digitalized. If employees are not ready to adapt, then digitalization fails. By nature, the human mind resists change –  employees may look for bypasses or open loops and often attempt to trick the system. The workforce must also digitalize alongside processes.

Better connectivity: Connectivity issues and IT-related hiccups must be dealt with before starting any digitalization project. If such issues are not addressed in the incipient stage, the entire digitalization process collapses.

Communication network: Another key component is communication, which must not be undermined. If the process lags in communication capabilities, employees may be unable to take appropriate and corrective action to complete their digitalization tasks.

Data analysis: A digital process is fast-paced and it processes massive volumes of data very quickly. The presentation of this data should ensure that useful data is quickly populated, easily accessible for rapid analysis. However, even if the data is represented in a user-friendly manner, employees may still remain reluctant and passive, so human behavior is actually an important focal point in the data-analysis pillar. Therefore, it is imperative that the data component be preceded by some sort of formal training to increase employees' acceptance and understanding of the necessary human-machine interfaces (HMIs).

Case study

Consider an ammonia plant that installed an advanced process control (APC) system. The aim of the APC implementation was to check energy intensity, reduce standard deviations of the key operating variables, maintain product quality within certain specifications and maximize throughput. This ammonia plant may primarily be divided into a front-end section (reforming, CO₂ removal and shift converters) and a back-end section (synthesis loop and refrigeration). The APC covered the critical plant loops and parameters. Figure 2 illustrates the plant's reformer loop.

Figure 2. The reformer loop in an ammonia plant, which is controlled via an APC setup with optional manual-control mode

As shown in Figure 3, a multivariable optimizing controller (MOC) was used for the entire ammonia plant. These ­­MOCs have sub-controllers for different sections. This example will focus on the primary reforming fuel (Subcontroller-1) loop and will explain the algorithm developed and its function. In this sub-controller loop, the primary reformer fuel pressure-control valve is automatically manipulated, keeping an eye on controlled variables like reformer outlet temperature, methane slippage and fluegas temperature. Amongst them, fuel pressure and fluegas temperature serve as constraint variables. This means that when fuel is increased or decreased, it looks upon both the pressure-regulating valve output and the fluegas temperature before manipulating the controlled variables.  It cannot breach its defined range unless a human intervenes.

When all the conditions are satisfied, the APC switches to the optimization mode, where it aims to optimize reformer energy. The system, upon sensing deviations, is capable of exiting APC-controlled mode and transferring to human-controlled mode during plant upsets.  This setup enables reformer fuel to be regulated without human intervention, thus optimizing plant energy consumption.

Figure 3. The algorithm applied to the reformer’s APC loop enabled optimized operation, with manual intervention only required during process upsets

Overcoming challenges

For the CPI to reap the benefits of plunging into the digital world, it must first overcome the challenges digitalization presents and treat them as prerequisites for customization and effective utilization.

Rigidity in structure: Many organizational structures in the CPI are very rigid, and companies often take pride in streamlining operations. This trend now has slightly subsided thanks to confidence built up by robust sensors used for data generation. Before leaping into digitalization, a cultural shift and readiness amongst its users should be developed.

Lack of convergence: Although it is often considered as such, digital change cannot be just the prerogative of information technology (IT) departments. Due to ownership uncertainty, friction between the IT team, the engineering team and the end user can occur, which hampers the seamless integration of the entire process setup. Data scientists, technology facilitators and the end users must join together to define ownership roles.

Cyber insecurity: With cyber-breaches occurring on an unprecedented scale, overcoming of cybersecurity risks can seem like an intimidating task. In this regard, confidence and trust-building measures, as well as reference examples of digitalization success stories will go a long way in allaying this fear.

Long lead times: The lead and commissioning times to integrate digitalization into a process setup can be very high. With the process industries already stressed to reduce downtime, it becomes all the more imperative that digital service providers think of innovative ways to reduce the installation time. At the onset, it may be useful to constitute a committee to take the lead in scaling up digitalization activity.

Failure to understand the process:  In addition to advanced competency in digital technologies, the team carrying out the digitalization projects must also understand the chemical process itself.  It may be useful for the process specialists to provide training for the digital implementation team to share a brief primer on the specific process chemistry and any other necessary technology parameters.

Lack of standard approach:  Although much has been said about the advantages of holistic digitalization across industry verticals, there are, so far, few or no industry-wide standardized procedures to which the CPI can refer. To overcome this, a standard framework is needed to help the industry to reach the intended destination on the digital journey.

Improving efficiency

Digitalization outreach is not just limited to assimilating datasets and putting them in concerted and easy-to-comprehend forms. Digitalization also boosts productivity by checking and predicting untimely process incidents, equipment failures, instrument malfunction and non-redundancy, culminating into increased on-stream hours. Digitalization, with its power to portray realtime data and their subsequent impact, also has capabilities to highlight and rectify potentially unsafe conditions. Furthermore, decreasing plant outages means that plants can avoid gas blowdowns and stack venting, which will result in overall lower atmospheric emission levels.  By cutting short unproductive hours, digitalization thus results in better environmental performance.

Digitalization has drawn parallels and gradually moved the CPI's workforce from intuition-based decision-making approaches to results-oriented and, ultimately, more organized approaches. With digitalization strategies in place, employees can feel more empowered to face process incidents. This empowerment boosts confidence and enhances overall reliability.

Additionally, with sound digitalization strategies in place, an organization's decision-makers may find it relatively easier to budget and plan annual maintenance programs. The energy and site management policies can be framed accordingly, aligning all employees toward a common company vision and culture.

With the world's growing aspirations for a sustainable and reliable future, industries must prioritize digitalization to help rein in energy and resource consumption. Digitalization is certainly an investment which, when coupled with the right mix of management intent, can make great strides in optimizing energy usage. Though many digital technologies are now well established in the CPI, many challenges will still arise, including evolving government regulations, increased competition, volatile markets, ever-changing customer demands and dynamic cost equations. Today, more than ever before, companies must innovate and digitalize, not just to survive, but thrive in the future.

Insights from industry

To further underline the industry's shift toward all things digital, experts from around the CPI provide their thoughts on digitalization's trends and future outlook.

Mark Brouwer, owner and director, Urea KnowHow: “Digitalization can play a key role in improved practices in the design, fabrication, construction, operation and maintenance of CPI plants. The safety and reliability of the CPI depends greatly on assuring the integrity of high-pressure equipment, piping, accessories and pumps. Digitalization supports improved quality and quicker procurement activities, better communication between all parties involved in designing, constructing, operating and maintaining plants and opens the door to co-operate efficiently from remote locations. It supports operating the plant at optimum process conditions and facilitates in continuous monitoring of critical equipment and instruments.”

Rajan Desai, secretary of the Heat Transfer Society of India (HTSI). "Before the pandemic, we were seeing an increasing interest in the use of digital twins in the CPI. Now, this year, there has been an explosion in growth and interest. The adoption of Internet of Things (IoT) and big data analytics across the industry has further contributed to the rise of digitalization. Leading processors have already integrated digitalization solutions in their assets, mainly for better monitoring and optimized usages – more precisely to make the existing assets more competitive and operations more reliable, safe and energy-optimized."

Jason Shirley, managing director ECP Energy & Chemical Professionals UAE. "Digitalization as the game changer with its ability to provide data continually. The immediate advantages may be efficiency improvements, increased uptime and improved safety and reliability. However, with distributed aging assets in process industries, digitalization poses herculean task and throw altogether different challenges."

Karthikeyan Balan, process safety consultant. "Digitalization is a major area of interest and has its own pros and cons. One must remember the bigger picture always and exercise caution while implementing. We must not  forget the human element in the midst of digitalization. How will the human use it?  Digitalization, on one hand makes data collection and presentation very easy, and helps to improve processes, but it's ultimately the human that makes the decision."

Dan Cojocaru, director Fertilizer Industrial Service Ltd., UK. "Before embarking on digitalization process, an organization should question themselves first about whether they are ready from a human-resources perspective to implement digitalization and if their plant is capable to support and accommodate the digitalization technology. Some old facilities may require significant modifications and investment to accommodate digitalization. One might find out that an old setup is not suitable for digitalization. However, for greenfield projects, digitalization is comparatively easier and may be implemented from the beginning itself.”

Edited by Mary Page Bailey

Author

Rohit Shukla is a process manager at Chambal Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd. in Kota, Rajasthan, India (Email: rohit.shukla@chambal.in). He holds an Industrial Safety certification from the National Productivity Council, India, and is also a Certified Energy Manager (CEM), as designated by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency. He is responsible for Process Safety Management (PSM) at Chambal.

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Using Accenture’s industry and digital-transformation experience, the joint venture will optimize the company's supply chain and promote intelligent automation in its operations, using AI, data analytics and robotic process automation.

Accenture's role includes consulting services and delivering a practical training program to help develop talent in digital technologies and intelligent operations.

Masafumi Takei, managing director of Resources at Accenture in Japan, said, "In order to lead the digital transformation successfully, it is essential to reimagine businesses and operations and strengthen the talent using technology such as data analytics and AI; it's not about just adopting new technology for technology's sake but rather about choosing the right solutions and making sure people are comfortable using them. Accenture will leverage our deep industry expertise and ingenuity to ensure that the joint venture serves as a digital innovation engine for Sumitomo Chemical Group."

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Bühler has defined the three quality parameters essential to the rice market: shine, smoothness and whiteness. These, together with the percentage of broken rice, determine the quality and therefore the price that can be achieved with the final product. The RiceLinePro DROA sensor continuously assesses and keeps track of these characteristics in realtime using complex ML algorithms. This not only standardizes the process, minimizing error and increasing consistency and reliability, but also reduces reliance on labor.

Bühler's new DS-C Optical Sorter is said to be one of the most advanced pieces of equipment in the entire processing line. It provides realtime product-quality alerts that help to optimize the rice yield, as well as adapt downstream processing technology settings. For a typical optical sorter, ejection spikes often result in the loss of good product. Bühler's integrated digital solutions detect these spikes as they happen. Where there is very little contamination, there may be no need to re-sort the product and it can go straight to packing. At an average throughput of 3,500 kg/h and 25 spikes/d, up to 32,000 kg of good product could be lost over a month if the errors are not detected and rectified. The monthly savings from increased visibility could be as high as $15,000.

The digitally connected technology provides mill operators with the insights they need to correctly adjust solution settings. Over time, the intelligent system is capable of adjusting autonomously.

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The hacking of a Florida water plant, which made headlines in February, was a poignant reminder of the dangers posed by breaches of cybersecurity. Although the incident was discovered before real harm could occur, it highlights the importance of due vigilance when it comes to the security of IT (information technology) and OT (operational technology) of plants in the chemical process industries (CPI).

Threats are always there

"The [CPI] face increasing and more sophisticated cybersecurity threats," says Michael Lester, director of cybersecurity strategy, governance and architecture at Emerson (St. Louis, Mo.; www.emerson.com). "Attacks are constantly evolving, as commoditized malware and advanced technologies provide new capabilities to threat actors. The motivation is still mostly financial gain, but nation state actors are increasingly involved and there are increasing numbers of attacks targeting the industrial control space from various threat actors," he says.

"Smaller chemical facilities often have older ‘patchwork' automation systems that increases vulnerability compounded by a lack of resources to routinely assess and strengthen their cybersecurity," Lester says. "Recent attacks are a reminder that regardless of size, industry or location, all facilities need to be aggressive about cybersecurity."

"Cyber-threats to industrial organizations will continue to increase, in both volume and sophistication," echoes Donovan Tindill, senior cybersecurity strategist at Honeywell Process Solutions (Houston; www.honeywellprocess.com). "We've reached a point where cyberattacks are not a question of if, but rather of when and what could be done to prevent that attack or minimize its harm. If you own or manage an OT-based operation, the time to take action and prepare your network is now," he says.

IIoT increases vulnerability

Maintaining a competitive edge means leveraging the industrial internet of things (IIoT) technologies, says Emerson's Lester. "More connections mean more potential vulnerabilities – and organizations need to prioritize cybersecurity equally alongside their IIoT and digital transformation initiatives," he says.

Honeywell's Tindill would agree. "The growth in the number of sensors or cloud connectivity increases the scope of cybersecurity, the attack footprint and the exposure as the number of cyber assets requiring cybersecurity protection and detection increases," says Tindill. "The objective of robust cybersecurity management is to protect the increasing count of cyber assets with basic cyber hygiene, such as strong remote access, electronic security perimeter, patching, monitoring, and incident response to ensure it is not more vulnerable," he says.

"In our experience, it is necessary to audit cybersecurity at least once per year and remediate all risks that exceed the tolerance level for that organization," continues Tindill. "Recommendations may include additional network segmentation, application whitelisting, endpoint hardening, security logging, proactive monitoring, robust incident response, and more," he says.

The benefits of due vigilance are real. "If you implement a foundational set of security controls in your plant systems that everyone should have, like patching, endpoint protection, backups and inventory management, then you can reduce your cybersecurity risk by up to 85%," says Ben Dickinson, global product manager – cybersecurity, ABB Energy Industries (Zurich, Switzerland; www.abb.com).

"The proliferation of IIoT devices introduces a new risk that companies must consider as they have the potential to increase the attack surface that hackers can exploit," says Mark Carrigan, chief operating officer, PAS Global, LLC (Houston; www.pas.com; Figure 1). "The reality today is that in most areas, OT cybersecurity trails IT cybersecurity. Many companies are realizing that they must implement the basics of cybersecurity for their OT assets, including collecting a holistic inventory of all assets (hardware, software and firmware), identifying and remediating vulnerabilities and improving the backup and recovery processes to ensure they can minimize the impact of a successful attack," says Carrigan.

Figure 1. Discovering and remediating vulnerabilities in OT is complex

To help in these efforts, PAS offers its Cyber Integrity platform (which includes Automation Integrity) to prevent, detect and remediate industrial cyberthreats. PAS Cyber Integrity is said to deliver comprehensive inventory, vulnerability, configuration, compliance, backup and recovery, and risk management for OT assets. In January, PAS launched a new module for Automation Integrity – Sensor Data Integrity – that "improves the discovery and configuration-management of IIoT devices that are prevalent in the process industries," says Carrigan.

Sensor Data Integrity enables industrial organizations to ensure configuration-data integrity for smart and traditional sensors with signal tracing and validation. This addition to Automation Integrity helps reduce both process safety and cyber risk in support of digital transformation initiatives. The new Sensor Data Integrity module provides multi-vendor discovery of smart IIoT and traditional analog sensors; visibility to the complete inventory and potential cyber vulnerability for sensors; creation of templates to define approved configuration for each sensor type; automated detection of configuration errors; automated identification of devices that don't match assigned templates; cross-checking of parameters; support for large-scale, multi-site sensor deployments; and sensor signal tracing, validation and visualization. The information provided by Sensor Data Integrity can also be leveraged by sensor asset-management systems (AMS) to support instrument calibration, and can feed PAS Cyber Integrity to support cybersecurity vulnerability assessments.

Security monitoring

Digital transformation typically involves providing more people and more access to data from the industrial control system (ICS) and other OT devices and systems, says Emerson's Lester. "This may include not only manufacturing and production staff members, but also third-party suppliers who assist in optimizing asset and overall performance. This increased data flow requires careful consideration of the architecture and systems and processes to continually monitor this architecture," he says.

"Security monitoring is not only an important mechanism to detect threats, but also helps with forensics and preventing similar future attacks," Lester continues. "A centralized Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) platform can take ICS workstations, servers and network equipment system events and logs and put them into a meaningful dashboard for prompt response from qualified resources. A SIEM can also monitor network traffic data through Network Security Monitoring appliances using a one-way-only communication flow as an added security monitoring feature," he says.

At the forefront of such efforts, LogPoint A/S (Copenhagen, Denmark; www.logpoint.com) launched Version 6.10 of its SIEM solution in February. This latest LogPoint release enables sharing of security analytics and dashboards and provides more context on attack developments supporting the latest MITRE ATT&CK framework. LogPoint 6.10 also integrates with third-party detection-and-response systems to send notifications to Managed Detection and Response (MDR) providers.

Role-based access to dashboards in LogPoint 6.10 helps teams effectively manage and update each other on evolving threats, increasing efficiency in the SOC and decreasing false positives. Configurable role-based, read-write access to each dashboard means that whenever an analyst makes an update, all users with access to the dashboard see the changes, says the company.

Security in the time of pandemic

"The biggest trend over the past year has been remote work as a solution to mitigate the spread of COVID-19," says Matt Malone, Industrial Control system (ICS) Cybersecurity Consultant, Yokogawa Corp. of America (Sugar Land, Tex.; www.yokogawa.com/us). "In our case, it greatly expanded interest in an existing product portfolio of ours, secure remote services. For example, our VPS Remote application (Figure 2) provides access to users of our Centum VP distributed control system from virtually any location. It has provided many of our clients the means to continue working in spite of COVID-19 without sacrificing safety or security. COVID-19 has also accelerated digital transformation in the industry; now, companies are realizing that cybersecurity is a prerequisite to successfully transforming."

Figure 2. The VPSRemote is configured with devices installed at the user's site for remote operation and linked to the secure Yokogawa Center System, which provides a safe network communication environment to connect these devices and systems

"While our secure remote services portfolio had already been on the market leading up to the COVID-19 outbreak, Yokogawa has since launched an entirely-new cybersecurity management solution that bridges IT and OT," says Malone. It is not solely based on technology but brings in numerous, management best practices, he adds.

For instance, companies can invest in general cybersecurity awareness programs for IT, OT and hybrid IT/OT personnel, explains Malone. They can perform security assessments or audits of control systems and control-system networks and increase visibility of control system cyber assets and configurations. They can implement anomaly and intrusion detection tools on control-system networks and invest in cybersecurity education and training for IT, OT and hybrid IT/OT personnel, says Malone.

"Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Emerson has worked with customers to provide secure remote services," says Lester. "Leveraging a variety of IIoT technologies and expertise we have enabled services such as non-intrusive health monitoring of valves, equipment performance monitoring and control system health monitoring to meet their operational needs. Secure distributed cloud-based engineering environments have also supported customers with virtual factory acceptance testing (FAT) to ensure projects remain on schedule," Lester says.

"An increased requirement to operate and maintain plants remotely over the last year has led to new initiatives that ensure remote access is carried out securely," says ABB's Dickinson. "Many of the vulnerabilities exploited by attackers relate to insecure remote access setup, so it's important that an appropriate level of security is embedded in your digital and remote-access solutions," he cautions.

Other product developments

ABB has developed a Secure Reference Architecture (Figure 3) and Cyber Security Risk Assessment Service, both based on IEC 62443, that couples together best practice approaches to securing industrial distributed control systems (DCS). "We work strategically with our customers to identify both their risk exposure and assess the maturity of their system security and security management practices. This enables the identification of appropriate security levels required for each system in order to mitigate cyber security risk to an acceptable level that corresponds to the organization's risk appetite and regulatory compliance requirements," explains Dickinson.

Figure 3. The Reference Architecture harnesses ABB's domain expertise in both cybersecurity and control-system technology to define a standardized definition of a secure control system architecture, and using a standard terminology that aligns with international standard IEC62443. This enables ABB to standardize the way in which it designs and implements its control-systems technology to deliver a secure setup by default and using a consistent approach across different delivery teams

This approach ensures optimal return on investment of cybersecurity improvement programs by ensuring all investments are tied to risk, Dickinson continues. Implementing the recommended security controls to achieve the identified security level will significantly reduce risk, but not eliminate it completely. "To address the residual risk, ABB has developed an event-monitoring service to help our customers effectively monitor their control systems and detect when an attacker has been successful in targeting your systems in order to respond quickly and effectively and thus limit the damage they have on a system," he says.

Meanwhile, Honeywell continues to invest in OT cybersecurity products and services, says Tindill. Some recent new offerings include Honeywell Forge Managed Security Services with Advanced Monitoring & Incident Response. Scheduled to be launched at the end of March, this offering is configured especially for OT environments. "This 24/7-managed security service combines automated analytics with the know-how of certified cybersecurity professionals to help identify, mitigate and manage cybersecurity threats," says Tindill.

Other recent offerings include Honeywell Forge Cybersecurity Suite, the latest release of industry proven software that helps users better manage the operations of OT-centric cybersecurity with improved asset discovery, risk and compliance monitoring and more. Also recently introduced is PCN Hardening Services. "Configured especially for OT networks, this service offers a method of better securing process control systems and network devices by applying elevated security configurations to existing components," says Tindill.

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SUEZ and Schneider Electric will develop and market a joint offering of innovative digital solutions for the management of the water cycle. This joint venture will support municipal water operators, as well as industrial players in the acceleration of their digital transformations, by providing them with a unique range of software solutions for planning, operation, maintenance, and optimization of water treatment infrastructure.

This joint venture, to be created once all the authorizations from the relevant competition authorities have been received, will leverage SUEZ's expertise in water and its experience in digital solutions, as well as the know-how of Schneider Electric in the development of software which provides digital water, energy management, and automation solutions.

The offering of this new entity, specializing in software solutions designed specifically for digital water, will provide customers with access to an application software database to optimize installations and networks, and enhance their performance, resilience, and sustainability: reducing leaks, optimizing network performance, generating energy savings, extending the lifespans of installations, preserving natural environments, improving the environmental footprint of water systems, etc.

"Our shared vision and the complementary expertise of Schneider Electric and SUEZ will enable us to strengthen our agility and our leadership in the fast-growing Digital Water market. The creation of this joint venture is fully in line with the SUEZ 2030 strategic plan which aims to use cutting-edge technologies in order to offer all of our customers' digital solutions that are 100% sustainable in terms of their impact on health, quality of life, environment, and climate," said Diane Galbe , Group SEVP – Smart & Environmental Solutions BU and Strategy

Peter Herweck, EVP Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric: “By combining SUEZ’s expertise in the water business with the capabilities of EcoStruxure, Schneider Electric’s open and inter-operable IoT platform, we are creating new solutions and services to empower our customers with actionable information to manage their process and assets more efficiently. With this Joint Venture, we look forward to becoming the digital partner of water cycle players, enabling them to reach true resiliency and sustainability.”

AQUADVANCED, SUEZ's real-time software suite, addresses the full range of challenges in the water cycle. It allows for the optimization and steering of water and sanitation networks and plants thanks to optimized, predictive monitoring of infrastructures. Using data science, AQUADVANCED solutions combine the historic expertise of a water operator with the best data processing methods.

Schneider Electric's EcoStruxure for Water and Wastewater allows for real-time supervision of data from multiple applications which can then be shared with the different company departments. The platform also enables rapid increases in operating performance, tighter quality control, lower consumption of energy and raw materials, improved maintenance and, in turn, boosts to company profitability.

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"The extension of our collaboration and the supply of renewable energy undoubtedly reaffirms the vision that both companies share about sustainability and how digitalization will transform the energy sector," said Josu Jon Imaz, Repsol CEO.

Teams from both companies will bring together their deep expertise in the energy sector and digital technologies such as AI, IoT and edge to explore collaboration on and development of various initiatives that will help accelerate industry transformation. Initial focus areas include the use of disruptive technologies to enable autonomous systems and efficient operations, improve productivity and safety for employees, and support the development of advanced energy solutions such as biofuels, energy storage and more.

As part of the collaboration, Repsol will provide a long-term supply of renewable wind and solar power to Microsoft operations in Europe, including Spain. Microsoft and Repsol share similar ambitions around the importance of reducing carbon emissions. Microsoft announced that it will source 100 percent of its energy supply from renewable energy by 2025, and Repsol – as the first company in its sector to announce the target to become a net zero emissions company by 2050 – has a goal of having a generation capacity of 7.5 GW by 2025 and 15 GW in 2030.

"Today the world is confronted with an urgent carbon crisis, and we have an opportunity to apply advances in digital technology to help the energy industry transition to a more sustainable future," said Satya Nadella, CEO, Microsoft. "Our collaboration with Repsol brings together the company's leadership in renewable energy with the power of Azure, Microsoft 365 and Power Platform to accelerate Repsol's digital transformation and reduce carbon emissions."

Additionally, as part of Repsol's hybrid cloud strategy and its broader digital transformation plans, the company has extended its use of Microsoft cloud solutions and has recommitted to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. Repsol is also expanding its use of Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams to enable greater collaboration, communication and productivity for its employees, as well as using Power Platform for low-code applications development and business process automation. The proliferation of these technologies across Repsol will help the company accelerate its Digitalization Program – a fundamental element in its business transformation – and make progress against its Strategic Plan 2021-2025, which envisions a positive impact of the company's digitization projects of more than €800 million a year by as early as 2022.

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SICK

The new Zirkor200 oxygen-measurement analyzer (photo) adds features for integration into safety-related process controls. The user-friendly, extremely rugged and precise zirconium-dioxide analyzers are not only available for gas explosion-hazardous areas (Zirkor200 Ex-G), but for use in dust explosive atmospheres (Zirkor200 Ex-D) as well. The Zirkor200 now also features SIL2 certification for integration into safety-related process controls. Both explosion-proof variants are approved in accordance with ATEX and IECEx. The Zirkor200 Ex-G for Zone 1 works well primarily in the chemicals, petrochemicals, refineries and oil-and-gas industries. With the Zirkor200 Ex-D for Zone 21, the focus is on applications in the cement and power-generation industries, and in the fields of waste-processing and recycling. In the majority of these industries, the Zirkor200 with SIL2 option also enables safety-relevant measurements with only one system (1oo1; one out of one). The analyzers of the Zirkor200 series handle process-gas temperatures up to 1,600°C. – SICK Inc., Minneapolis, Minn.

www.sick.com

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IDEC

This company has released a free firmware upgrade enabling new and existing MicroSmart FC6A Plus PLC CPUs (photo) to support the industry-standard MQTT protocol. The upgrade can be downloaded to the FC6A CPU, so it is easy for users to connect all types of field data to on-site and cloud-based brokers, and make the information readily available for users and analytical applications. Users can also send commands to the FC6A using MQTT. MQTT has emerged as the preferred industrial internet of things (IIoT) communications protocol because it uses a lightweight and efficient publish/subscribe methodology for secure messaging between devices and centralized brokers, making information easily available for all authorized applications. A large number of clients can publish data to the broker, subscribe to any broker data, or bi-directionally do both. – IDEC Corp., Sunnyvale, Calif.

www.idec.com/usa

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APM solutions leverage data capture, integration, visualization, and analytics to improve the reliability and availability of physical assets. ARMS Reliability's asset strategy management, asset reliability services, and consultancy experience, along with its OnePM software offering, will integrate into Bently Nevada's System 1 software platform from Baker Hughes, which provides critical plant-wide asset health monitoring and protection. The combined offering will provide Baker Hughes customers with a full spectrum of APM services to enhance industrial operational efficiencies, extend asset lifecycles, and reduce non-productive downtime.

The acquisition is another step forward for Baker Hughes' strategy to provide an industrial software platform at scale to deliver outcome-based solutions for highly engineered critical equipment. Baker Hughes will have access to ARMS Reliability’s substantial presence in a broad range of industrial sectors including mining, power, manufacturing, and utility companies. ARMS Reliability’s global customer base has strong adoption in the U.S. and Australia, and the agreement is expected to drive strong growth in APM adoption in other geographic markets, as well as enabling synergies from a broader combined offering with Bently Nevada.

"The acquisition of ARMS Reliability emphasizes Baker Hughes' commitment to empower the digital transformation of our customers' industrial assets and strategically invest for growth in industrial asset management," said Rami Qasem, executive vice president of Digital Solutions at Baker Hughes. "This is another exciting step forward as we look to be the partner of choice and offer our customers a complete set of services across the entire industrial asset lifecycle."

APM services are deployed in some of the world's most complex industrial sectors and can deliver up to a 30% reduction in maintenance cost, up to a 75% decrease in machine breakdowns, and up to a 45% reduction in downtime, according to the Asset Performance Management Market Global Forecast to 2025. Baker Hughes' Bently Nevada business is an industry leader in condition monitoring and asset protection with over 60 years of expertise and over 6 million sensors installed globally. The addition of ARMS Reliability to the world-class Bently Nevada portfolio will provide centralized, connected APM solutions to customers.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2021 and will be integrated into the Bently Nevada product line within Baker Hughes' Digital Solutions segment.

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