Siemens and Bentley announce integrated APM for power plants

Siemens and Bentley Systems have announced a joint technology and service solution, consisting of their complementary offerings, to speed up the digitalisation of power plants and provide intelligent analytics with a range of innovative offerings and managed services solutions. The new service, to be hosted on Siemens’ cloud-based open IoT operating system, MindSphere, will combine Bentley’s asset performance software capabilities with Siemens’ complementary technology and services to assist power plant owners in taking advantage of digitalisation, which helps improve maintenance operations and planning.

Siemens’ asset performance management (APM) solution, part of the company’s Omnivise digital solutions portfolio, covers the entire power plant, including the combustion and steam turbines as well as associated generators and pumps, motors, transformers, valves, switchgear and other equipment that affects plant reliability and performance. Using intelligent models based on predictive analytics, the solution takes data from multiple sources, applies domain and analytical expertise, and then integrates into a plant’s existing computerised maintenance management system (CMMS) or enterprise asset management (EAM) environment to improve maintenance planning, reduce outages and increase workforce efficiency.

APM service solutions are tailored to each organisation’s needs, based on variable factors such as plant configuration, on-site resources, equipment expertise, and plant operations and maintenance strategy. The scope of options ranges from on-premises installation or cloud-based MindSphere hosting, to turnkey set-up of APM — complete with Siemens asset models — to APM as a service, with a fully integrated managed service solution set up and run remotely by Siemens power plant experts.

“APM for Power Plants is evidence of the benefits this strategic alliance brings to our customers,” said Laura Anderson, Head of the Siemens Power Generation Services Controls and Digitalisation business. “By combining Siemens’ and Bentley’s complementary and proven areas of expertise, this innovative offering will help our customers manage costs, improve reliability, and increase the performance and availability of their thermal power infrastructure.”

“We’re excited to be delivering, in this case for power plant owners, operational advantages made uniquely possible by our work with Siemens to leverage IoT and performance digital twins,” said Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems. “In effect, we are together advancing APM towards asset performance modelling — where our engineering technologies compound the value of IT and operations technologies (OT).”