How manufacturers can use digitalization to prepare for the future

Digitalization insights

• Honeywell Users Group (HUG) in Orlando emphasized giving manufacturers the right tools for the future and empowering manufacturers to optimize processes more easily.
• Digitalization and digital transformation are at the heart of manufacturing optimization as well giving workers — especially younger ones — the right tools to ensure greater effectiveness.

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The 36^thHoneywell Users Group (HUG) event in Orlando kicked off Monday with an emphasis on manufacturers preparing for the future.

“The future is coming fast. The world is transforming and all industries are transforming,” said Pramesh Maheshwari, president and CEO, Honeywell Process Solutions in his opening statement Monday.

The future is digital and is putting an emphasis on what could be possible as well as what is possible. “How can we shape those changes to achieve better outcomes, improve efficiency?” Maheshwari said. “The route to optimize transformation will vary.”

Jason Urso, chief technology officer at Honeywell, led a long discussion about the way Honeywell is working to effect change within its company and for customers, as well.

“Our world is changing and the pace is faster than ever,” he said. He used the analogy of a car and how it has changed with vehicles become smarter and alerting drivers to situations before they happen. “There’s a parallel in the industrial plant. Technology has made them more reliable and safer than ever before. Digitalization is changing everything we do in plant operations.”

Making the workplace safer and better for the next generation

在一个会话与媒体,Maheshwari c说ustomers are asking about how things can be done faster and safer.

“It’s all about making workers safer, more productive and giving them more value,” he said.

Digitalization and digital transformation is at the heart of this and empowering them with the right tools, especially the workers who are taking over for the millions of Baby Boomers who will be retiring by 2030.

“The new generation learns differently,” he said. “Their learning is so different. We need to adapt and give them the tools and technologies to make it engaging and relevant to them,” he said.

“The world is changing. To optimize transformation, we must do it together,” he said.

Honeywell announces cloud-based digital twin

On Monday, the company introduced Digital Prime, which is a cloud-based digital twin for tracking, managing and testing process control changes and system modifications. Digital Prime is designed to allows users to test frequently for more accurate results while reducing reactive maintenance.

Digital Prime offers quality control through an efficient and collaborative solution for managing changes, running factory acceptance tests and improving project execution and training without having to disrupt the production system. The platform can be used by companies in industries such as oil and gas, sheet manufacturing and chemicals to test modifications during planned shutdown periods, to reduce rework.

Most solutions require dedicated hardware, can be vulnerable to security breaches and do not stay current to match live operations. Digital Prime addresses these challenges by providing a “lab system as a service” that continually updates to reflect changes within the production environment, providing a dependable digital twin.

Digital Prime is a collaborative ecosystem with secure cloud-based connectivity, a virtual engineering platform and built-in security protection. The digital ecosystem can be accessed by users across the globe through a subscription service using multi-factor authentication, enabling customers to standardize across the enterprise.

“Honeywell Digital Prime will set a new standard for the future of digital twins with its instant access to a continuously updated, safe platform for monitoring and testing operations,” Maheshwari said in a press release.

Honeywell Digital Prime is expected to be available to customers in Q4 2023.

Chris Vavra, web content manager, CFE Media and Technology,cvavra@cfemedia.com.

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