Our customers in the Process Industry have found improved profitability whilst addressing challenges in the following four areas:

-       HSSE: health, safety, security, and environment

-       Efficiency

-       Asset availability

-       Human reliability

In addition, it has become necessary in recent years to tackle changes in the business environment—the visualization and optimization of the value chain and sustainability—and the COVID-19 pandemic has elevated the complexity of the situation. Increased flexibility in production, such as with remote operations, is required if businesses hope to continue business while ensuring the safety of the workforce.

To address these concerns, it is vital to realize Smart Manufacturing through the utilization of digital technologies, thereby optimizing the entire value chain by integrating the information scattered across each element of the company’s value chain and seamlessly intertwining them.

Yokogawa is advocating a cloud-based integration architecture as one step forward in achieving this information integration. In the past, information integration between layers in accordance with the ISA-95 hierarchical model was standard. However, limitations in utilizing information beyond the adjacent layers proved problematic.

The recent evolution in digital technologies has enabled network-like OT-IT convergences that make it possible to transcend layers. Now, we can expect the realization of new AI or machine learning applications, such as advanced decision support systems that employ management-level information with field-level real-time data.

This architecture further contributes to the realization of remote operations, consolidating experts and decision makers in the Integrated Operation Center to enable efficient and flexible operations and the management of widely distributed plants. This will reduce the movement of people and human contact, thus reducing risks to the workforce and the company during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We believe the goal of Smart Manufacturing is Autonomous Operations. We also believe that Autonomous Operations without the need for human intervention can be the key to solving the challenges raised at the start of this blog.

Yokogawa will continue to provide various solutions and deliver workshops to support the journey towards Smart Manufacturing and Autonomous Operations. We would like to contribute to a better and more sustainable society alongside our customers.