APC 2014 Annual Report Download - page 30

1OVERVIEW OF THE GROUP’S STRATEGY, MARKETS AND BUSINESSES
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Research & Development 5.
As a technology company, Schneider Electric is constantly seeking to leverage technology advances to deliver truly
innovative solutions that improve the daily life of people and the efficiency of companies, while constantly improving
the efficiency of its R&D.
Leverage technology advances 5.1
Emerging trends that appeared in the last five years, like Internet of
IT/OT convergence
things («IoT»), digitization and IT/OT convergence, are now StruxureWare, Schneider Electric’s flagship R&D program was
shaping Schneider Electric’s R&D strategy and investments. They already about bridging the gap between automation systems (OT)
are impacting the way products and systems are architected, and enterprise level applications like ERP (IT) to allow further
developed, delivered and serviced, with significant value for our optimization of operations. With the acquisitions of such
customers. companies as 7T in Water, Solve IT in mining and lately InStep in
Digitization and IoT
Utilities, Schneider Electric has built a strong portfolio of solutions
that bridge this gap and deliver strong operational improvements.
In addition to delivering solid results, IT/OT convergence opens up
Beyond personal devices, IoT is a huge opportunity in industrial the possibility for simpler, more scalable and flexible industrial
systems. It enables significant increase in the number of measure architectures, leveraging the best of IT technologies, like cloud
and control points and, as a consequence, further optimization of computing and virtualization, and the OT advances driven by IoT.
these systems. Since 2000, Schneider Electric has invested in In partnership with major IT players, like CISCO and Microsoft, as
research programs to develop low power «pervasive sensing» well as thought leading customers, Schneider Electric is designing
devices which are now reaching industrialization phase, just in time the future converged industrial architectures that have the potential
to contribute to such solutions. of dividing by two the lifetime cost of ownership of industrial control
Sensors that can work 10 years off a button size battery while systems.
transmitting data over wireless «mesh» networks are reaching
Modeling and simulation
industrialization. Their lifetime cost is up to 10 times lower than
classical wired sensors and will revolutionize the way buildings and
factories are monitored and controlled. Regarding lifetime cost, the design phase of industrial projects
R&D efforts now focus on the ease of deploying and running large plays a critical role in reducing both time and cost of system
networks of such sensors and the scalability and security of the deployment.
infrastructure needed to harness the data coming from these Invensys, acquired by Schneider Electric in January2014, is a
networks. The cloud based Digital Services Platform was leader in the simulation of complex continuous processes, such as
developed by Schneider Electric over the last three years to refineries or chemical plants. During the design phase, the plant
address these two challenges. Dozens of pilots are underway with can be simulated to optimize its design, validate its performance
business units and external partners, leveraging a library of and start operator training before it is even built. The IT division had
analytics modules developed in the context of the Operational developed a similar set of tools for data centers, including 3D
Intelligence program. thermal simulations to validate the design of the cooling system.
Using mobile technology, the insights delivered by these analytics R&D teams are working to generalize this offering to any kind of
are packaged into simple, yet powerful, «context aware» industrial system, including large and complex buildings like
applications. Thanks to geo-localization, the information can hospitals, in partnership with the leading CAD/CAE suppliers in
literally find its way to the person needing it most, depending on these domains. Filling the gap between design and operational
where he/she is. Once advised, another set of mobile based systems will not only decrease design-and-build costs but also
applications, including augmented reality, further guide the user to those linked to maintaining and evolving systems over the 30+ life
transform these insights into action. expectancy that is common in some industries.
Within five years, one can expect that industrial systems will be
developed like modern software, starting from a model of the
process, followed by a simulation based on this model, developed
and tested «against» the model and finally deployed on totally
standardized hardware.
28 2014 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC