Special feature
Infrastructure around the world is being linked together via sensors, machine learning and analytics. We examine the rise of the digital twin, the new leaders in industrial IoT (IIoT) and case studies that highlight the lessons learned from production IIoT deployments.
Element Analytics is launching Element Unify, a platform that’s designed to meld data from operations and information technology systems to advance the industrial Internet of things.
The launch from Element Analytics, a startup that has raised $40 million in venture funding, aims to fill data gaps that prevent analytics within industrial enterprises. Element Analytics is also notable since it is focused on metadata, data quality and adding context to siloed information.
Element Analytics CEO Andy Bane said Unify is part of the company’s broader aim to bridge operational and information technology (OT and IT). “There’s a data divide and a last mile issue as information systems like SAP and Oracle converge with systems at plants,” said Bane. “Bringing these together is essential to do analytics at scale.”
Industrial IoT is a hot market for cloud giants such as AWS, which has groups targeted on co-innovating with industrial companies.
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Bane said Amazon Web Services is a key partner as is Microsoft Azure and OSIsoft, which was recently acquired by Aveva. Element Analytics’ Unify platform is designed to focus on metadata and melding data so customers can model once and consume everywhere. For instance, Element Analytics can absorb data from equipment sensors as well as IT systems and distribute it to various platforms such as Snowflake, PTC ThingWorx, C3.ai and visualization packages.
“The end system we deliver too doesn’t matter,” said Bane. One of the biggest issues enterprises are wrestling with is time series data. Element Analytics can combine sensor data with the OEM of the pump, location and other context, said Bane.
Element Unify includes the following components:
- Integrate, which allows for ingestion of metadata from both OT and IT systems and spreadsheets to fix data quality issues.
- Contextualize, a module that allows customers to combine data and compose data models from raw data.
- Govern, which has a data governance engine for industrial metadata.
- ElementGraph, a visual graphical map of industrial IoT deployments as well as interdependencies.
Element Analytics customer base includes BP, Cargill and Nova Scotia Power.
Other industrial IoT players:
