Manufacturing Industry Faces Data-Collection Inflection Point

Industrial facilities still struggle with scattered data across multiple platforms.

ANAHEIM, CA — Industrial technology has evolved through industrial, electric, automation and digital revolutions. At its Automation Fair in Anaheim, California, Rockwell Automation stressed that the industry faces an inflection point. However, the company’s focus for the next few years is not to add new capabilities, but to make existing solutions work together.

This commitment to optimizing existing technologies aligns with the strategies of SmartSights, a company that offers data-collection software to support decision-making and action in industrial operations.

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SmartSights Chief Operating Officer Greg Jackson explained that industrial facilities struggle with scattered data across multiple platforms, hindering real-time analysis and action. The company combats this issue by integrating data into a digestible format for users, from production engineers to maintenance teams.

SmartSights describes its data-collection software as a complement to WIN-911, the company’s autonomous notification and escalation platform, and XLReporter, a reporting product with more than 80 connections that provides access to specific pieces of data and enables plants to meet compliance reporting mandates.

“One of the things that we see as a core strength is we have a delivery mechanism,” Jackson said. “Because we have this notification platform, we can take data, in some cases it’s a report [and] in some cases it’s a workflow, and get back to the right person at the right time to make a good decision if something’s going haywire in the plant.”

Jackson added that SmartSights’ customers appreciate that the company’s software streamlines data collection, especially as the manufacturing industry faces labor shortages and growing pressure to operate more efficiently.

SmartSights also prioritizes simplifying complex systems to avoid overwhelming users with features and lengthy implementation times.

“We’ve learned over the years that we’ve got to make it really easy because this is a complimentary add-on product,” Jackson said. “[Customers] need to be able to come in, understand it with a limited amount of training, connect the systems and configure it properly.”

In September, SmartSights announced its acquisition of Sage Clarity, an IT services and consulting company that develops apps to provide manufacturers with insight from their operations.

The move added Sage Clarity’s ability to obtain machine-level data without requiring PLC programming.

“It accelerates digital transformation initiatives, whether it’s an MES initiative or an OE project,” SmartSights Senior Vice President John Oskin said. “We’re the data collection component that can feed those systems. We’re doing this non-invasively. That helps in the regulated industries. If you can go in without having to modify a PLC, you’ve just saved yourself a million bucks on data revalidation.”

According to Oskin, the next generation of data collection involves capturing intelligence from retiring workers and transferring it to new users. He added that the industry has moved past the days of simply pushing a large amount of information into a “data lake” and now favors a more focused approach.

“That’s one of the reasons that we’re so excited about having the Sage Clarity portfolio,” Jackson said. “That gives us much wider capabilities in terms of machine performance, which is different than process performance. That opens the door for some modeling of different applications.”

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