Digital Transformation in the Process Industries: Looking Back, Looking Forward

Almost every current software initiative in the major process industries seems to be called “digital transformation” with the implication that it is a completely new approach. However, the digital transformation of the process industries has a long and rich history with many long-term successes and some examples that were less than fully successful. In this presentation there will be a short review of the history of these developments, the trends that have characterized its evolution and the lessons learned that can help us with evaluation of the many new technology options available today. There are many claims with regard to the potential benefits of these new technologies such as big data analytics, AI and IIOT, some with totally unrealistic values. They all require investment and manpower and their likely payout needs to be analyzed rigorously versus other investment alternatives in the context of actual operating goals. Operating plants have many decisions cycles that are occurring simultaneously. For a technology to be of value it has to improve the quality and/ or speed of one or more of these cycles. Significant additional value and margin can be gained by improving the accuracy of forecasts of future plant behavior, including potential production and supply chain alternatives, and early detection of potential availability problems and product quality issues. Improvements in safety and environmental performance can also be obtained. In this presentation a structure will be presented for characterization and evaluation of the technologies and their financial analysis. Actual case studies will be used to illustrate the impact of some of these new tools on plant productivity and margins.