Siemens says WA poised to save billions and boost productivity

Western Australia’s mining, oil and gas, energy, water, healthcare, transportation and other industries stand to greatly increase their productivity by harnessing the immense power of big data and turning it into smart data according to a visiting global expert.

The state could save billions of dollars by adopting smart data tools, says one of the world’s leading experts in the field, Siemens’ Dr Florian Beil - a physicist and computer scientist - who is visiting Australia for the first time.

“A decade ago, it would have taken 1000 years to produce 5 billion gigabytes of data. Today, the same volume is generated in less than 10 minutes. This phenomenon we call big data,” Dr Beil says.

German-based Dr Beil, who conducted his PhD in the area and has been working in the field for 10 years, says the volume of data in society is now doubling every two years. Vast volumes of data are generated in the planning, production, operation and monitoring of all sorts of industrial devices.

“The real challenge is turning the bits and bytes into meaningful information to enhance productivity. That’s where smart data tools come in.”

Essentially we’re talking about incredibly powerful mathematics and clever programming using complex algorithms to help human beings overcome challenges that range from managing scarce resources to demographic and climate change.

The USA, the UK, Europe and China are all in a race to turn big data into smart data, while Dr Beil says “Australia is on the cusp of an explosion in this area and WA could benefit the most”.

According to Dr Beil, as the WA economy and industries shift from the build and construct phase to the operational phase, smart data offers tremendous opportunities for cost savings.

“Just think about it from the perspective of predictive maintenance. We can now use data to forecast how a machine will behave.

“In the mining and oil and gas industries, hardware is often spread over huge distances. Data is streaming in and being captured all over the state or the country.

 “We can see if a piece of equipment is likely to break down and plan for it, rather than face unnecessary disruption. Downtime is minimised and so is unnecessary maintenance,” says Dr Beil.

“In the water sector, smart data can be used, for instance, to readily control and monitor the purity of outflow from reservoirs to the point of distribution, before it gets to customers. Contamination and leakage can be easily detected.

“In medicine, smart data stands to improve patient care and outcomes. Algorithms can connect information from imaging devices (such as an MRI) to doctors’ findings and derive the most appropriate treatment recommendations.”

Dr Beil says, “We stand on the precipice of a brave new world, with smart data being an immensely powerful tool, set to improve the way society - in all its forms - operates.

“Literally, over the life cycle of a project, there are billions of dollars of efficiency opportunities in Australia,” Dr Beil says. Unexpected downtime in a mine site can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per hour and has been known to wipe out millions of dollars in the share price. “Companies that find the best solutions using smart data will win the race, so there is a real urgency in this field.”

As an example, Siemens has been using big data for energy analytics at its Amberg electronics factory over the last 12 months. In doing so, Siemens has been able to save 100,000 litres of liquid nitrogen and reduce energy consumption by approximately 200,000 kWh compared to the previous year, which represents a 5% saving.