Could you introduce Emerson’s business in Singapore and highlight any recent developments?

Emerson has been present in Singapore since 1965. We gather a strong core of leaders and domain expertise with the ability to execute global scale, complex projects in product development, engineering, and digital transformation. The Emerson Solutions Center located in Singapore is an example of our continuous investment in the country. Through it, we support customers in the Asia Pacific to explore the applications and possibilities of a digital plant. We have also recently invested in expanding flow calibration capabilities to reduce turnaround time for customers from 10 weeks to up to 10 days.

How are Emerson’s services supporting clients in the manufacturing sector to become more sustainable?

As younger generations grow increasingly more concerned with sustainability and make lifestyle changes in this sense, digital technologies are key to seeing the change happen at a manufacturing level. Fundamentally, digital transformation helps improve plant operations, safety and reliability. Carbon reduction initiatives come with the challenge of quantifying and analyzing carbon-related data, and it is in this space that AI and IoT-enabled software can help drive important improvements to cut emissions and increase productivity.

What are some of the main adoption drivers for automation and digitalization within the process industries?

The impending increase in the carbon tax is giving companies no choice but to adopt technologies that promote sustainability. The increasing awareness of social responsibility is another driving factor because customers are loyal to companies with values that resonate with their own. Sustainable products have a wider appeal to both business customers and end consumers. Moreover, digitalized operations enable our customers to track the root causes of any issues and follow actionable insights. In most recent years, the rise of remote working is also pushing companies to give workers access to information without having to be present physically. This can only be done by digitalizing operations.

Could you elaborate on Emerson’s integrated solutions for the manufacturing sector?

Through Emerson’s holistic digital and software solutions, we provide scalable and rapid improvements under every organization’s plant modernization strategy, but the main questions within this transformation are where to begin, how to go about it, and what are the relevant components to ensure successful implementation? We tackle these questions in two ways: First, we show what can be done by using our interactive experience of the digital plant. Second, we propose the Plantweb^TM digital ecosystem. The ecosystem principle is key because we need a correlation of data to secure transmission all the way to quality analytics to inform better decisions.

Emerson operates an additive manufacturing center in Singapore. Can you tell us more about the advantages of this technology?

Though comparable to 3D printing, additive manufacturing is a more complex process because it offers a solution to work with difficult materials like metals – which don’t lend themselves to the classic 3D printing method. Additive manufacturing is pushing the boundaries of what can be done through other traditional design and manufacturing techniques available today, and it is a suitable option for certain applications whereby mechanical drilling or other production processes are not amenable. For certain high-value products, it can also significantly reduce lead time.

What is your current innovation focus?

True innovation lies in the confluence of technologies and connectivity. High volumes of data and rich data are posing challenges to customers who find it difficult to deal with multiple systems and fragmented sources. We developed a platform bringing different types of data from the plant under one single platform, known as the Plantweb Optics platform. This is essentially a holistic data management platform unifying the Optics data into actionable information. ​It centralizes, standardizes, and contextualizes the relevant data into one depository. Users see this information in a dashboard where they can interpret the analytics and be provided with meaningful insights regarding the health of their assets, for example.

What are your key objectives and aspirations for Emerson in the near term?

There are many interesting opportunities for us to make an impact by listening to the voice of our customers. The Plantweb digital ecosystem will form a foundational layer of connectivity and analytics. We will focus on diversifying Emerson’s software portfolio and creating synergies relevant to other Emerson businesses. Finally, inclusion is very important for us: we are building a very agile workforce by following an inclusive mindset.