The Evolution of the Industrial Control Room

The connectivity brought about by the Internet of Things (IoT) is accelerating a revolutionary change to the energy and utility plant sector. Vast arrays of connected devices have enabled the centralized digital monitoring of assets, sensors, and processes, which has essentially created a virtual representation of the entire powerplant.

Virtual Replicas

This ‘digital twin’ allows plant management teams to have a complete picture of the facility, whether on site or not, giving visibility to the status of every facet of operation, and then respond accordingly if interventions are required.

Long-term, this greatly improves maintenance efficiency, while widespread digital insight into performance of parts and systems allows for pre-emptive action before issues become more critical. It also empowers teams to smartly manage maintenance schedules, which in turn reduces downtime and optimizes efficiency.

Machine Learning at the Heart

Over the short-term and mission-critical timeframes however, the networks of sensors and monitoring systems elevate the IoT opportunity into one which not only avoids widespread, catastrophic outages, but also saves lives.

Embedded machine learning systems constantly analyze information to predict issues before they happen, with the ability to be fine-tuned to recognize the slightest change in status - further heightening the reliability of understanding.

Importantly, the network capabilities allow for remote diagnostics and resolution, delivering major reductions in response times. An alert to a failing, or faulty component, combined with appropriate resolution procedures, will make the plant inherently safer and more reliable. What’s more, the data can be iteratively analyzed and forward modeled to offer predictive maintenance, further enhancing the mission-critical process.

Information Needs Insight

However, speed is only effective if the insight presented is pinpoint accurate. An immediate alert is essential, but if it is for a wrongly identified problem or is displaying a false-positive, then this will rapidly reduce the trust the operators have in the system – negating the point of such intelligence.

The combination of speed, reliability, and accuracy relies on one thing: data. None of the intelligence-based opportunities for positive action are possible without a solution that makes collective decision-making and data analysis possible; a functionality that only a smart KVM solution can deliver.

Information requires knowledge to be acted upon with immediacy, and the access and collaboration that KVM brings is an unrivalled system for delivering such actionable mission-critical insight in real-time.

To find out more about how KVM solutions are supporting industrial control rooms, or how connectivity solutions can help prepare your control room for the future, download latest whitepaper.