GE Users Summit 2014

The editors of Control and Control Design were on hand at the 2014 User Summit and have compiled all the highlights of the event in this PDF. Download it now.

Software Suite Combines GE Historian, Data Analysis Solutions

Today at its Intelligent Platforms User Summit in Orlando, Florida, GE announced the release of a new version of the Proficy Monitoring & Analysis Suite (PMAS) that integrates its industrial data historian, Proficy Historian, with its advanced analytics capabilities, Proficy SmartSignal.  The new offering also uses GE's Predix platform for the Industrial Internet. Read more.

Jeff Slagle is known as the grim reaper of engine maintenance. If he's coming to talk with you about an aircraft engine, the news is typically not good. Slagle joined Delta Air Lines in 1998, testing engines, and is now the general manager of propulsion engineering. Read more.

The eternal goal is still better, safer, more efficient and profitable operating decisions. And for a chemical manufacturer and a grain-handling OEM who spoke today at the GE Intelligent Platform User Summit, the latest, fastest way to get there is cloud-based data gathering, storage and analysis using GE software, equipment and services. Read more.

GE Brings Context to Technology Wave

GE CEO Jeff Immelt delivered three distinct messages in his keynote address to the more than 600 attendees of this week's GE Intelligent Platforms User Summit in Orlando, Florida. First, every industrial company will soon be a software and data analytics company, or risk competitive irrelevance. Read more.

In 2015, a teenager will be able to make a quick escape from trouble on his very own hoverboard, a wheel-less skateboard that flies three inches off the ground. Of course, that is the fictional world where Marty McFly finds himself in the 1980s movie franchise, "Back to the Future." But, as Kate Johnson, GE's vice president and commercial officer for sales and marketing points out, "There's a hoverboard that works now. Read more .

The Industrial Internet is quickly being adopted in an ever-expanding number and range of applications. For instance, the Greater Cincinnati Water Works (GCWW) and Metropolitan Sewer Dept. are employing the Industrial Internet and solutions from GE Intelligent Platforms to improve its resilience and speed up its response to storms and overflow conditions. Read more.

Manufacturing in a World of Pervasive Data

The GE Brilliant Factory vision is based on creating a "digital thread," a data supply chain that runs from a product's conception through design, to the field and back again (for repair, recycling or remanufacturing) in a closed-loop process. "The biggest challenge in connecting to the digital thread is culture," said Paul Boris. Read more.

This could be the start of something big. "Over my career, I've witnessed three or four major shifts in automation," began Bernie Anger, general manager of GE Intelligent Platforms, who kicked off the second day of the company's 2014 User Summit in Orlando, Florida. "Right now, we're witnessing the next huge wave of change and innovation." Read more.

The differences between operating a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier group and a partnership between GE and Chevron to recover oil and gas are more than skin deep. However, they also have many data, communications and performance needs in common, and so the skills and leadership needed to accomplish both successfully are also very similar. Read more.

From Asset and System Monitoring to Enterprise Optimization

The GE Software Center of Excellence (CoE) in San Ramon, California, employs more than 1,000 people developing enabling technologies for the Industrial Internet. "Four years ago, GE made a major investment, doubling down, because it saw big opportunities," said John Magee, CoE chief marketing officer. Read more.

Just as virtualization technology transformed the IT landscape and crept into the supervisory and execution layers of many a manufacturing facility, it's now poised to invade real-time controls, too. "The technology is inevitable, and it's coming sooner than you think," said Rich Carpenter, chief technology strategist for GE Intelligent Platforms. Read more.

Seeing is believing, and bringing operational information into the light makes it usable by everyone in an enterprise—allowing them all to make faster, more productive decisions. This enhanced awareness was especially useful at GE Lighting, which recently reinvented itself. Read more.