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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)

A practical guide to IT OT convergence – getting value from your business analytics

Russell Byfield
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Yokogawa Australia Pty Ltd, 18A Metrolpex Avenue, Murarrie, Qld 4172, Australia. Email: russell.byfield@au.yokogawa.com

The APPEA Journal 59(2) 526-530 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ18190
Accepted: 2 April 2019   Published: 17 June 2019

Abstract

A lot of time, effort and money has been and is being spent by operating companies and service companies in collecting data from many different sources, agglomerating that data, carrying out analytics on that data with the intention of turning that data into actionable insights that positively impact safety, environment, operations and profitability. This has been done with varying levels of success by approaching the problem from either an information technology (IT) or an operational technology (OT) point of view. What we are finding is that the best outcomes are achieved by having IT and OT domain experience with operational industry expertise within the same team. This has proven to be the case in other industries. There is also a need to understand edge and cloud actionable insights delivery in order to determine the optimal balance of edge and cloud delivery in a hybrid solution model. There is a continuum of analytics from high speed analytics at the edge, for such things as assisting regulatory control and real-time safety system diagnostics, to data lake analysis in the cloud, for planning, supply chain and business prioritisation and optimisation. Some analytics are best done at the edge; some are better done in the cloud. It’s a ‘horses for courses’ approach. The nature of the desired outcome, the required actionable insight and the nature of the data gathering are critical in determining the most effective approach. This paper discusses several examples of how this integrated IT OT approach took a desired outcome and turned it into an analytics platform that delivered significant value to the business. This paper cites examples of edge and cloud analytics that are enabled by integrating clever and sufficient industrial internet of things (IIoT) connectivity, which lead to actionable insights. These, in turn, ensured the correct action was effectively applied to the correct part(s) of the business operation, resulting in effective achievement of the desired outcome.

Keywords: asset reliability, big data, business processes, cloud, data cycles, connectivity, digitalisation, fog, IIoT, latency, mist, operational architecture, procedures, security, technology silos, technology stack, traceability, visualisation.

Russell Byfield is the Advanced Solutions Manager of Yokogawa Australia. Yokogawa is a leading provider of industrial automation, MES, test and measurement solutions. Combining superior technology with engineering services, project management, and maintenance, Yokogawa delivers field proven operational efficiency, safety, quality, and reliability. Russell has over 25 years’ international experience in the petroleum and process industries. He has been directly involved in field development, reservoir engineering, process facilities design, commissioning and operations, fabrication and construction, and since the year 2000 has focussed on the modelling, analytics and optimisation of conventional and unconventional oil and gas development and operations. Russell has presented many papers over the years the most recent were at APPEA in May 2018 and the New Zealand Petroleum Conference in March 2018. Russell has held a variety of regional and international technical, managerial and directorial roles. Russell has a chemical engineering degree with honours from Adelaide University, is a Fellow of Engineers Australia, a Chartered Professional Engineer, RPEQ Petroleum and Process Engineer and is the Past Chair of the Queensland Branch of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.