APC 2013 Annual Report Download - page 33

OVERVIEW OF THE GROUP'S STRATEGY, MARKETS AND BUSINESSES
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Major drivers of innovation 5.3
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Talking about innovation, Louis Pasteur coined the famous technologies to bridge the gap between these ERPs and control
sentence “Luck favors the prepared mind”. Across industries, systems is creating new opportunities to improve operational
major opportunities for innovation tend to happen at the efficiency.
intersection between business or societal trends and the advent
In the mining industry, multi-national giants have invested hundreds
of new technologies.
ofmillions of dollars into Enterprise applications and control
Whether for a start-up or for a large multinational like Schneider systems that are integrated via Excel spreadsheets. For a fraction
Electric, success often resides in detecting and exploiting such of this investment, we deliver a “pit to port” optimization solution
opportunities faster than one’s competitors. that combines the data of these pre-existing systems to deliver up
to 30% savings on supply chain costs.
Market trends: an increasing need for efficiency
“Operational intelligence”, a key opportunity at
and higher technology acceptance
the crossroad between market and technology
Most of the industries served by Schneider Electric are impacted trends
by the same macro-trends:
the constant drive for efficiency is actually accelerated by the
lTaking analytics out of the board room (Business Intelligence) to
widespread focus on sustainable development, which directly
improve the efficiency of operational processes is what
translates into additional operational efficiency requirements;
Schneider Electric calls Operational Intelligence, a key area of
R&D investments since two years.
accelerated urbanization, mostly in new economies, which
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opens the opportunity for a more efficient development,
Harnessing the power of cloud computing to apply large scale
provided one can harness the complexity of managing such
analytics to optimize customer operations brings significant gains
large systems;
at multiple levels:
by systematically connecting products to cloud based
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the arrival on the labor market of the first generation of “digital
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analytics, Schneider Electric can provide its customers a range
natives” is another important trend. These new recruits have
of services aimed at maximizing the return they get from these
very different skills and expectations from their elders with, in
assets;
particular, a much higher acceptance for technology.
collecting additional data from large networks of sensors
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The acceptance of the smart phone, for instance, opens new
opens new possibilities to optimize customers’ operational
possibilities not only for advertisers but also for a variety of
processes, beyond the strict scope of control systems;
industries. It allows workers to easily glean up to date information,
the widespread availability of powerful cloud based analytics
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including their location, and to receive in return contextualized
allows to optimize larger and larger “systems of systems”,
information or guidance that can drastically improve their efficiency.
such as Smart Grids or Smart Cities.
Technology trends: the emergence of affordable
By regularly collecting log data from a Building Management
System and analyzing it “in the cloud”, Schneider Electric can
large scale analytics
precisely pinpoint dysfunctions amongst the hundreds of devices
controlled by the system, and can even evaluate the cost of
On the technology side, behind such buzzwords as “cloud” and
resulting over-consumption. These same logs, enriched with
“big data”, the availability of virtually limitless – and very
weather data, allow to predict the thermal behavior of the building
affordable – communication, computing and storage capacities
and allow to optimize its heating/cooling. Finally, deploying
opens a new world of possibilities. Analytics and optimization
low-cost presence sensors throughout this same building and
techniques, which less than 5 years ago were only available to
again enriching the same logs with this data allows to optimize
deep pocketed multi-nationals are now widely available.
heating/cooling even more granularly. Without changing the BMS
In an environment where most companies have reached the limit
that controls this building, Schneider Electric delivered significant
of the benefits they could extract out of their enterprise level
efficiency gains, and the same functionality will become a standard
systems (ERP type applications), the ability of these new
feature of future BMS generations.
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