Smart RDM platform ‘visited’ Amsterdam

In May, current and future users of the Aveva PI System solution met in Amsterdam, at the annual AVEVA PI World 2022 conference. We were there too: as one of the main AVEVA OSIsoft partners in CEE and as an official sponsor of the event.

70 presentations in three days

Three days spent in business meetings and more than 70 presentations to visitors to our stand are now paying off – we are just finalising the sales talks we started in Amsterdam. We are celebrating success because we have found confirmation of the usefulness of the tool we went to the event with. Our stand was under siege – so much so that on the last day of the conference, when the technical team had already finished dismantling the stands, we were still talking to visitors.

The annual conference is one of the largest events in Europe dedicated to products supplied by AVEVA, and since this is the case, there was no shortage of companies in Amsterdam offering technology solutions to support digital transformation. How can our product, the Smart RDM platform, help with this? We were most often asked how reports and alerts work on it – we talked about these and many other functionalities of the platform with customers, presenting examples of our implementations to date.

From Excel to Smart RDM

Excel – everyone uses it, from small businesses to large corporations. The problem arises when there is a growing number of Excels in a company – separate, unmanageable sources of information that are correctly interpreted only by their creators. With this approach, access to information is difficult and it is impossible to create reports that uniformly show the situation in the organisation.

At one of our clients we counted… 2,500 Excels. But this is a thing of the past. Today, the client uses the Smart RDM platform and it is this platform that ‘manages’ the data that was previously managed by multiple administrators. We have implemented the automation of reporting processes, which means that the system itself generates the correct reports and distributes them to the right recipients on the basis of a confirmed subscription. Smart RDM can also integrate with popular business reporting tools, including Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, and create reports based on data downloaded from them and production data. We talked about the business benefits of reporting automation at the Amsterdam conference.

Data, the foundation for processes

We mentioned ‘correct reports’ above: the word ‘correct’ is key, because creating reports with errors is meaningless and means risk to the business. We mentioned ‘correct reports’ above: the word ‘correct’ is key, because creating reports with errors is meaningless and means risk to the business. The same is true for alerts. This functionality of the Smart RDM platform consists, in simple terms, in sending notifications about a specific event, such as a failure or exceeding a given business indicator, to defined users. Event parameters can be configured according to the needs of the organisation. Valuable functionality, but only if the alert is not false and over the top. Whether it will be – depends on the correctness of the data involved and the process built on it.

In Amsterdam, the topic of data and the need to make even better use of it was a recurring theme both in the behind-the-scenes discussions and during the main presentations. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Digital Twin – each of these developments in the latest technology allows us to ‘squeeze’ even more out of data and thus improve processes. How the “digital twin” works – we explained to visitors to our stand using the Smart RDM platform as an example. We also explained that our Digital Twin will not work properly if it is not fed with correct, verified data. Structured data, collected and available in one place, is the foundation for process improvement in an organisation and a prerequisite for a correct digital transformation. Without taking this first step, it is impossible to go further – and it is this first step that businesses often fear the most.

Smart RDM platform – what is this tool?

Customers share similar concerns before implementing the Smart RDM platform. But once the implementation is underway, they admit that their fears were a bit over the top. We, too, do not make promises to customers over the top. What does this mean? We do not promise that the implementation of the Smart RDM platform will go smoothly. But because we already have many such implementations to our credit, we thus know the risks involved and how to minimise them. We also know that in this first stage, i.e. when organising and consolidating the data, help, and involvement of the customer are necessary – something we always warn about.

Smart RDM platform – this name has been mentioned several times in the text. In this case – what is this tool?

We have only mentioned two functionalities, but this is only the beginning of our series of articles on Smart RDM. In the following texts, we will look at other capabilities of the platform and answer the question, often asked by customers: “What does Smart RDM do?”. But above all – we will tell you why it is worth having it in your company and what business benefits it provides. We are constantly adding new functionalities to the platform, so there will be no shortage of inspiration to talk about next year, at AVEVA PI World 2023.