Special REPORT

From Digital Greenfields

to Brownfield IoT Success

Sponsored by
Special REPORT

CONTENTS

How digital greenfield projects can pave the way for brownfield IoT success 3

How do other industries manage assets? 7

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 PLANT SERVICES: Spec ial REPORT

launching point for IIoT in existing

and limited-budget environments.
How digital greenfield projects
BOOSTING BROWNFIELD
can pave the way for brownfield PERFORMANCE
At brownfield sites, IIoT initiatives
IoT success are typically associated with upgrade
or expansion projects. Digitaliza-
The advances made by assets designed for reliability highlight tion is more challenging in these
the brownfield opportunities available to plant professionals environments due to aging facilities,
equipment, and networking systems
By Sheila Kennedy, CMRP, contributing editor (or lack thereof), as well as data that
is often siloed or paper based and
 Connectivity is king for the machines, instrumentation and generally of inferior quality. It is,
industrial internet of things (IIoT). control systems, sensors, motor however, a necessary endeavor in
Connectivity of machines, devices, controls, robotic systems, condi- order to benefit from IIoT-enabled
data, and people is the hallmark tion monitoring devices, safety operational improvements.
of digital transformation and of systems, and more. Full opti- Many older plants are in dire
all the opportunities that come mization may be achievable in need of asset optimization, making
with it. While the pace and extent greenfield projects with adequate transitioning from run-to-failure
of digitalization varies from plant capital funding, but legacy sites (RTF) and routine preventive
to plant, the greatest divergence can only hope for piecemeal maintenance (PM) practices to
is between new (greenfield) and deployments. condition monitoring and pre-
existing (brownfield) sites. Digitalized asset monitoring and dictive maintenance (PdM) a
In a fully optimized plant, management is becoming the norm prominent IIoT goal. Adequately
everything is smart: the in brand new plants, but it is also a identifying and correcting

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 PLANT SERVICES: Spec ial REPORT

deteriorating machine conditions

Prioritizing IIoT projects in existing plants requires consideration of asset
before failure requires open, stan- criticality. Examples may include:
dards-based communications along • Installing vibration and thermal condition sensors on certain categories
with integration and interopera- of equipment or factory lines

bility between various wired and • Implementing infrared thermography to monitor certain equipment and
wireless machine sensors, portable facility hot spots or plant wide

or drone-based condition moni-
toring devices, and enterprise asset
and service management software.
Vibration analysis, thermogra-
phy, ultrasound, and oil analysis
are common PdM approaches.
Real-time, threshold-driven alerts
prompt the planning and sched-
uling of repairs or replacements,
and automatic escalation ensures
the work is completed in time to
avoid costly equipment failure.
As a result, PdM helps to reduce
maintenance and inventory costs,
improve safety and performance,
and extend asset longevity.
Many older plants are in dire
• Employing AR to help guide equipment-facing employees through com-
plex maintenance tasks
• Creating a digital twin of a critical asset or system to facilitate monitor-
ing and maintenance decisions
Advanced analytics leverage data sources, structures, and equip-
machine learning (ML), artificial ment, which complicate setup. The
intelligence (AI), and pattern rec- IIoT-enabled capability is useful for
ognition to formulate decisions simulating operation, monitoring
from streaming and static big data, machine health, predicting mainte-
with minimal human intervention. nance, simulating repair scenarios,
Analytics in the cloud and on edge and forecasting responses to process
devices help to form better conclu- changes. To remain effective, digital
sions about asset management and twins must be continuously updated
maintenance, from predicting or to match changes made to the phys-
diagnosing failures, to making repair ical twin.
Augmented reality (AR), virtual
reality (VR), mixed reality (MR),
and virtual agents provide new and

need of asset optimization. immersive ways to tackle personnel

The newer iteration of PdM is
prescriptive maintenance (RxM),
which not only predicts failure but
also recommends or “prescribes”
corrective actions with help from
advanced analytics. Assets that
would benefit most from fail-
ure prediction and prevention,
whether for production, safety, or
environmental reasons, are prime
candidates for PdM and RxM
investments in existing plants.
and replacement decisions, to proac-
tively applying the actions to similar
assets under similar conditions.
Over time, the algorithms become
“smarter” and more accurate as the
systems learn from experience.
3D modeling and simulation of
assets, systems, processes, and com-
plete plants is possible with digital
replicas, or twins. Older plants
tend to deploy digital twins on a
smaller scale due to incompatible
training, development, and col-
laboration. Field service and plant
maintenance roles can be learned
and practiced in safe, realistic envi-
ronments, and conducted live with
on-demand access to remote experts
for advice or collaboration. The tech-
nology is helpful for retraining and
reskilling personnel for new roles
arising from digitalization.
Data quality and accessibility,
qualities seldom associated with
older plants, are fundamental to
effective AI and ML. Since learning

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from bad data will inevitably pro-
duce faulty results, some companies
are establishing data quality groups
focused on cleansing data, making
ML a more viable goal. Example
objectives include ensuring data rel-
evance, accuracy, completeness, and
integrity; eliminating redundancies;
and digitizing knowledge stored in
the memories or personal records of
seasoned professionals.
Resistance to change is another
challenge unique to existing plants.
New technologies and processes
disrupt established comfort zones,
Data quality and accessibility,
qualities seldom associated with
older plants, are fundamental
to effective AI and ML.
creating fear of failure, fear of
being replaced, and lack of buy-
in. Employees who thrive on
new technology adapt better, but
those who don’t may find digital
transformation a threat. Effective
organizational change management
is imperative to ensure IIoT and
digitalization projects succeed.
ENGINEERING GREENFIELD
SITES FOR RELIABILITY
The advantage for new plants is
the clean slate from which they
are designed, modeled, and engi-
neered for reliability. Industry 4.0
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greenfield smart factories are dig-
italized from the ground up. They
have an open IIoT architecture that
is standards-based, interoperable,
extensible, scalable, and adaptable
to new and inevitably improv-
ing technologies. They enjoy full
democratization of data and are
staffed by employees who embrace
all things digital.
Greenfield plants uniquely
benefit from fresh, clean data;
state-of-the-art assets, systems, and
processes; integrated smart devices
and sensors; and full connectivity.
Some are so robotic and AI-driven
that asset management and mon-
itoring is performed off-site and
maintenance crews are only dis-
patched on an as-needed basis.
In brand new plants, it is feasi-
ble to create a digital twin of the
entire plant and all its equipment,
from conception to the as-de-
signed, as-built, and progressive
as-maintained states. Modeling
and simulation of assets and
processes using clean, complete,
quality data ensures the analytics
are more intelligent, the PdM
and RxM findings are timelier,
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the prescribed actions are more
accurate, and the ML delivers
increasing intelligence and value
to the organization. Having a
digital twin of the whole plant
extends the value, enabling plant-
wide continuous improvement.
UNIVERSAL APPEAL OF IIOT
FOR ASSET MANAGEMENT
AND MONITORING
Digitalization of asset management
and monitoring, implemented with
the latest cybersecurity best prac-
tices, offers lucrative rewards. It sets
the path for maintenance and field
service optimization for plants of
any age, and for maintenance and
reliability service providers. It also
accelerates the journey to a serviti-
zation business model for original
equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Greenfield and brownfield asset
owners and operators, service pro-
viders, and OEMs all benefit from
heightened awareness of machine
operating and performance trends,
ever-smarter analytics, early
notification of anomalies, and
efficient, cost-effective corrective
actions. The resultant improve-
ments in uptime, performance,
and productivity are evidenced in
key performance indicators such
as mean time between failure
(MTBF), mean time to repair
(MTTR), and overall equipment
effectiveness (OEE). If you are not
already on the IIoT journey, now is
the time to start. 
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to your customers:

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How do other industries
manage assets?
World-class processes can be learned from couriers, big box retailers,
health care, and the military
By Contributing Editor David Berger, P.Eng., MBA
 If you were scouring the globe
looking for world-class processes
in asset management, which com-
panies would you benchmark?
Most companies would no doubt
look to leading asset managers
amongst their competitors usu-
ally within their marketplace. In
my experience, the vast major-
ity of organizations will not be
thinking beyond this relatively
narrow search.
Best practice processes can be
found in any department of any
company, anywhere in the world.
Do not limit your search for
excellence to strictly asset man-
agement functions because the
entire industry is struggling with
the same issues. Truly effective
benchmarking comes from finding
“best-in-class” companies, i.e., top
performers for a given function
such as planning and scheduling,
supply chain management, or ser-
vice management.
So instead of asking, “who are
the best asset management shops
out there,” ask “which companies
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manage their suppliers well,” or
“which industry really understands
the value of preventive mainte-
nance,” and so on. Summarized
below are four of the more common
functions that are of interest to
modern asset management oper-
ations, as well as possible target
industries for benchmarking.
Best practice processes can
be found in any department
of any company, anywhere in the
world. Do not limit your search
for excellence to strictly
asset management functions.
SERVICE MANAGEMENT
The maintenance department pro-
vides a service to the operations
department. For the purposes of
benchmarking, this is somewhat
analogous to McDonald’s provid-
ing service to the general public.
Asset managers could learn a great
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deal from the fast food industry
with respect to attitude (smiles
are free), manpower and capacity
planning (demand is somewhat
unpredictable), and order taking
(fast food companies provide quick
response time on “work orders”).
The courier industry is also a
good target for benchmarking. The
large courier companies have excel-
lent dispatch and tracking systems
for letters and parcels, which are
analogous to the tracking of main-
tenance jobs via work orders or
service orders. Furthermore, cou-
rier companies spend a great deal of
time and effort in developing engi-
neered work standards to improve
the productivity and predictability
of their processes. Some of the
techniques used by the courier
industry may be transferrable in
developing standards for repetitive
maintenance tasks.
Incentives are used very effec-
tively by the courier companies to
drive out higher levels of produc-
tivity. Service level agreements

with customers are maintained at
a very high level for response time
and accuracy, in large part because
incentives reward this behavior.
Perhaps some form of incentives,
not necessarily monetary, could be
used in your maintenance depart-
ment to improve performance.
HMOs have expended much
effort in understanding reliability
management. Like an HMO,
production facilities must
aggressively pursue
a structured approach.
Another industry that has an
outstanding reputation for ser-
vice excellence is the high-end
computer hardware industry.
Companies such as Xerox and
IBM have built a reputation for
delivering high-quality servicing of
copiers and mainframe computers
respectively. The excellent training
program given to both the service
personnel and their customers is
one example of a best practice pro-
cess worth investigating.
SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT
There are many functions under the
title of supply chain management –
logistics, inventory control, supplier
partnerships, and procurement are
but a few. When it comes to tight
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control of inventory from one end of
the supply chain to the other, phar-
maceutical companies are clearly
leaders. Drugs must be carefully
tracked such that if a bad batch were
detected in the field, the entire lot
can be quickly recalled and the root
cause of the problem found.
Although the inventory control
requirements of most maintenance
operations are less stringent, much
can be learned from the pharma-
ceutical industry. This includes
how to better manage suppliers,
the value of lot control, and how to
deal effectively with obsolescence.
Large retailers such as depart-
ment stores (e.g., Wal-Mart),
hardware stores (e.g., Home
Depot), and grocery stores (e.g.,
Price Club), move a lot of material
very efficiently. How to keep min-
imal stock in a world of uncertain
demand is an art well worth learn-
ing from these expert companies.
These companies have developed
world-class techniques for manag-
ing their suppliers, keeping their
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inventory at an absolute minimum
despite uncertain demand, expe-
diting critical orders, ensuring
constancy of supply, and using
warehousing space efficiently.
RELIABILITY MANAGEMENT
What should you do with the end-
less stream of equipment history
data that sits idly in some CMMS
database and in the heads of senior
asset management staff? What
industries have found ways to mine
that data to improve the reliability
of their asset base?
The health care industry provides
an excellent example of how focus
on reliability management can pay
big dividends. Health Maintenance
Organizations (HMOs) have a
mandate to maximize profit by
maintaining the health of their cli-
ents. An HMO will bill its clients
a premium. The premiums are then
aggregated into the top line of a
budget, and the HMO directs its
energy into minimizing the sick-
ness or “downtime” of its clients.
This includes keeping its clientele
away from the doctors and hospi-
tals in order to decrease the cost of
material, equipment, facilities, and
labor (i.e., the number of doctors
and support staff).
This is analogous to a produc-
tion facility that has a capacity
and budget to manufacture and
sell product. Like the HMO, a
plant strives to minimize “sick-
ness” or downtime of its capital

investment for maximum profit.
This is accomplished by reduction
of maintenance material or spare
parts, maintenance equipment and
facilities, and maintenance labor
such as maintainers, stores person-
nel, and management.
Maintainers or technicians in a
production environment are sim-
ilar to the doctors working for an
HMO in that in order to minimize
costs, both must work efficiently
and effectively to predict, prevent,
and correct failures. Essentially,
doctors manage the reliability of
the human “machine,” whereas
maintenance workers do the same
with capital equipment. This is why
HMOs are excellent benchmark-
ing targets.
HMOs have expended much
effort in understanding reliability
management and are quite good at
applying its principles throughout
the life of its “assets” (i.e., clients).
For example, doctors make use of
encoded fields on “work orders” to
track the problem as reported by a
patient, the cause, and corrective
action taken. The HMO then uses
statistical analysis to drive out the
preventive measures that reduce
high cost failures, such as better
training for doctors to prevent
high failure rates in a given area of
medicine.
As well, predictive models are
built to understand who is at
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greatest risk, and how can a failure
be avoided or at least the effects
minimized. Knowledge-based
diagnostic systems are used to
assist the doctor in focusing on
the root cause quickly and taking
the least costly corrective action.
For example, statistical analysis
may show that unnecessary proce-
dures have cost the organization
dearly. The knowledge-based
diagnostic system is based on rules
that can provide better guidance
to the doctor on when to use
what procedure.
PREVENTIVE MAINTENANCE
Most maintenance operations
have a reputation for being in
continuous fire-fighting mode.
There are companies out there,
however, that have a superb repu-
tation for emphasizing preventive
maintenance.
For example, airlines, airport
authorities, and utilities such as
the nuclear power industry cannot
afford to have a reactive-style
maintenance operation. For the
safety and convenience of the
public, major emphasis is placed on
preventive maintenance to avoid
downtime. Although this may seem
like an extremely costly approach
for most maintenance shops, upon
closer examination through bench-
marking, it is surprising just how
much is transferrable.
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Similarly, the military has
an outstanding preventive
maintenance program for their
equipment, as evidenced by the
Gulf War. Much was learned by
the U.S. military on the advan-
tages of preventive maintenance
over reactive maintenance and
how to do it right.
The software industry also enjoys
the benefits of solid preventive
maintenance programs. Every soft-
ware company’s worst nightmare
is launching a new release to the
general public and facing a massive
clean-up of buggy software and a
mired reputation. There are some
lessons to be learned from this
industry on the value of preven-
tive maintenance.
HOW TO NARROW YOUR SCOPE
In summary, do not narrow your
scope to benchmarking only other
asset management functions in your
industry. Instead, narrow your scope
to those few processes that will yield
the greatest improvement oppor-
tunity. Then, broaden the scope of
your search for benchmarking targets
to any company in the world that
exhibits excellence for those pro-
cesses, including but not limited to
asset management. 
Email Contributing Editor David Berger,
P.Eng., MBA, president of The Lamus
Group Inc., at davidb@lamusgroup.com.