IDM ¦ Technology/IT
Cloud and remote work
boosting the business
SPX FLOW Automation
Like virtually all suppliers of processing
lines, equipment and automation
solutions, Corona caused
things to change dramatically at
SPX FLOW. But business went on.
Not as usual, however. A lot of things
changed in short time and the way of operating
the business will not return to a pre-
Corona status. That could be good for the
company, the customer and even the environment.
IDM spoke with Jonathan Reed,
Global Head of Automation, Electrical &
Digital Engineering, SPX FLOW.
"The restrictions of business travel hit us
and forced us to change the way we did our
jobs," Jonathan Reed says. "It is very simple
in the automation business: if you can’t go
to a customer site there is no commissioning
and the plant does not go into production.
So we had to find new ways to keep
projects running despite all the problems,
and we did that in a way where customers
could access more of our process specialists
and software code experts worldwide".
The answer: creating a digital twin of
customers’ solutions in the cloud. In turn,
that helped create the final solution before
SPX FLOW implemented the innovation at
customer facilities.
Technologies at the edge
When the pandemic broke out, remote
technology was already available but it
was at the edge as Reed says, but was not
yet fully accepted and in use. Covid proved
to become a driver for the broad utilisation
of just such remote technologies.
"We were able to swiftly convince our customers
worldwide that we could manage
all sorts of projects remotely and that it was
not necessary to do laborious and costly
travel just for project commissioning.
In fact, in the after-Corona world, we
will return to a more normal way of
operation but we will definitely cut down on
business travel. This saves costs for our
customers and reduces our environmental
impact," Jonathan told IDM.
Cloud technology
But it was not only remote video and desktop
12 · July/August 2021 ¦ international-dairy.com
technologies that moved automation
forward, it was the increased use of cloud
technology that really accelerated things
by allowing people to work simultaneously
from remote places on one project.
SPX FLOW can now combine the skills of
process specialists and software code experts
working from virtually any place in
the world. This ensures that SPX FLOW
can ensure the right people are supporting
a project. If it suddenly turns out that a
specialist from another SPX FLOW location
is required to step in, he or she can be easily
brought into the work.
"Things have changed completely,"
Jonathan says. "We build, test and modify
solutions for customers in a cloud environment.
Every one of our people involved
can feed work into the cloud platform for
software development and test the final
solution. We then install the complete automation
software on the site servers and
PLCs and ship them to the customer. The
whole automation can be switched on
once it arrives on site in a plug & play operation
reducing the time for installation and
setup on site. We can also hibernate this
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