I’ve had the privilege of representing AspenTech at the ARC Industry Forum since 2015, when my product management responsibilities included cybersecurity. I will, once again, be attending this year and I am looking forward to the scheduled sessions. I have always found the sessions to be relevant, informative and interesting and, when I first began attending, the sessions helped us validate and evolve our thinking on managing our software in OT/ET/IT environments. We needed to understand what our customers were saying about cybersecurity and I could always count on those sessions to give me a needed dose of reality.  

In 2016 AspenTech began acquiring the companies, and technologies, which would eventually comprise our Asset Performance Management suite of products. I was working in corporate strategy and planning — making recommendations on these exciting technologies and integrating them into AspenTech’s stable of solutions. It was then I really started widening my gaze at ARC. I noticed digitalization was on the menu, and I started to observe that vendors were focused on platforms and data (and not so much on solutions and value). That is somewhat understandable as it is easy to boast about the technology and the clever ways in which data is being obtained, stored, retrieved and visualized. As vendors, we can be guilty of valuing technology over purpose. While folks were interested in the technology shown by the various vendors, they did not seem convinced.  

Over the next few years, we watched as platforms faded into the background and solutions started to emerge — some vendors were getting it. Sometimes our clients’ data problems were so bad that merely organizing and exposing the data was a step forward, but, to get a return on your digitalization dollar, the solution must provide value. We have been sharing our Aspen Mtell^® solution for a few years at ARC and have some great success stories.  

We embed machine learning in our solution to enable reliability engineers, process engineers, and equipment experts to successfully use our solution. One thing we have always believed is that you should not have to be a data scientist to succeed with prescriptive maintenance solutions. We want to utilize our customers' expertise in assets, maintenance and sensors, and their historical memory (remember when the compressor failed, and you were about to take a vacation?) to prevent such issues in the future. This practical knowledge, combined with AspenTech’s machine learning technology, produces autonomous Agents that run 24/7. They are watching your processes, your assets and your sensors in order to detect the earliest possible warnings of evolving problems.  

We’ve learned that companies have different levels of digital maturity, but everyone needs quick success when investing to expose and use data in new ways. Why not start with Aspen Mtell to provide fast ROI? Convince both the boots on the ground and the office staff writing the checks that they can use machine learning to effectively improve uptime and minimize maintenance costs. During our round table discussion on Tuesday, June 7 at 1:00 p.m. titled The APM Journey – Digital Paths Building Value Across Different Industries, we will speak with customers about their digitalization journey with a focus on APM. No two journeys are alike, and we will learn about their decision process.  

In line with the overall conference theme of sustainability, my colleague Paige Marie Morse is joining a panel discussion moderated by ARC Advisory Group’s Peter Reynolds on Wednesday, June 8 at 10:30 a.m. to discuss new ways to bring products to market while achieving sustainable manufacturing. I like to say our prescriptive maintenance solution prevents unplanned downtime and, by extension, the flares, waste and messes associated with equipment failure. We also prevent wasted batches and energy losses; a good sustainability message on its own. Hope to see you all there. 

Learn more about AspenTech’s presence at this year's ARC Industry Forum