APC 2014 Annual Report Download - page 31

OVERVIEW OF THE GROUP’S STRATEGY, MARKETS AND BUSINESSES
RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT
Deliver truly innovative solutions 5.2
1
The advances mentioned above generate innovation across
Industry
market segments, all the way from homes to smart cities, as As End Users and OEMs re-examine their automation and
illustrated in these few examples. operation management strategies to take advantage of the IoT,
Homes
enable operational excellence and improve overall business
performance, PlantStruxure and MachineStruxure architectures
play a key role in managing convergence between informational
The Wiser home control solution includes a battery powered technology and operational technology.
wireless thermostat that can be easily installed to optimize the Our Best-In-Class Smart Connected Products such as the Altivar
comfort and energy consumption of each room. The new version Process variable speed drive leverage IoT technologies to deliver
of this thermostat, leveraging the IoT platform developed in the last real customer value. With its smart diagnostics based on dynamic
three years has a five times longer battery life (up to 10 years), QR codes, and its embedded optimization algorithms such as
costs 50% less and is three times thinner than a traditional wired pump curves, the Altivar Process drive reduces downtime by up to
thermostat. 20%. Furthermore, its built-in energy management services and
Buildings
seamless integration with business management systems provide
real operational insights contributing to operational efficiency
improvements of up to +25%.
Making buildings more efficient often requires significant upgrades Continuing to lead the world of Automation, the Modicon M580 is
of their control systems, which often leads to unjustifiable payback the world's 1st ePAC - with Ethernet built right into its core,
for mid-size buildings. Thanks to a cloud based platform and the bridging the gap between the OT and IT worlds. Thanks to
growing acceptance of wireless communication, the SmartStruxure Modicon M580 you can monitor and diagnose your installation in
Light solution decreases by 50% the cost of retro-fitting a mid-size real-time from any location using your standard tablet and smart
building. phone, greatly improving the efficiency of your maintenance teams
Additionally, this solution is connected «out of the box» with a set In automation projects enhanced with Foxboro Control Systems
of cloud based algorithms that automatically discovers the thermal and Triconex Safety Instrumented Systems, Schneider Electric is
characteristics of the building, learns the habits of its tenants and leading the way with Virtualized Engineering, also called
automatically optimizes its consumption. Engineering in the Cloud, throughout the entire project. From the
Energy
design phase to verification and testing, our customers can utilize
engineering resources and subject matter experts anywhere in the
world increasing collaboration and reducing time to first
Low voltage electrical distribution panels, beyond ensuring the production.
safety of the assets they power, collect a large number of data
Data Centers
which could be used to optimize the performance of these assets.
Analyzing the frequency of the electrical feedback of a motor can,
for instance, allow to detect the wear and potential failure of their IoT type solutions combine large networks of smart on-site devices
bearings or of the equipment they power. and powerful cloud based analytics. For multiple reasons, including
Thanks again to the low cost of the IoT platform, every distribution security and reliability, most of these solutions will still require
panel shipped by Schneider Electric or its partners is now on-site computing, but with the kind of flexibility of a «private
connected to the cloud. Data experts and process experts cloud».
collaborate to analyze the patterns in the data coming from the Schneider Electric is working with major IT players to develop
panels to come up with novel ways of optimizing their packaged «micro data centers» that can be installed in just a few
performance. Once developed in the cloud, the corresponding hours on a site, will «discover» their environment and
algorithms will be optimized and implemented in the intelligent self-configure, pulling functionality from Schneider Electric’s cloud
meters and breakers built into the panel, thus making it smarter platform. Such micro data centers will be a key component of the
and smarter. converged IT/OT industrial architectures mentioned earlier.
The connection of distribution panels to the remote platform The first version of this micro data center, developed with CISCO
enables services such as demand response, allowing the for traditional business applications is already commercially
aggregation of multiple buildings and/or factories into significant available.
capacity that utilities can call upon at peak times.
29
2014 REGISTRATION DOCUMENT SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC