Earlier this month, I travelled across Germany meeting with AspenTech employees and customers—all culminating in the first ever DataWorks user conference – DataWorks 23. During the two-day meeting in beautiful Frankfurt, the discussion focused on how customers like BASF, Westnetz and Boehringer Ingelheim use AspenTech Inmation to unlock hidden value from their data and solve critical business imperatives.

It was great to get together with customers, partners and teammates to conclude a whirlwind year! Last October we announced AspenTech’s acquisition of Inmation and followed that in February with the launch of our DataWorks business unit. Now, here we are in May at the conclusion of our first user conference! Here are some of the highlights from the week.

Day One – How we got here

The event kicked off with VP & GM of AspenTech DataWorks, Nicole Rennalls welcoming all of our customers and partners who made the trip. After Nicole set the stage, Stefan Secker, VP of Technology and one of Inmation’s co-founders, led a three-year Inmation retrospective. In this session Stefan covered Inmation’s founding, its relationship with Emerson and the acquisition by AspenTech.

Following the retrospective, Inmation experts presented a session on the evolution of Inmation and offered attendees a preview of the upcoming AspenTech DataWorks Community. Customers WestNetz and Boehringer Ingelheim presented use cases covering Inmation applications in the pharmaceutical and electricity distribution industry and the day wrapped up with showcases from partners Emerson and cts.

Day Two – Unlocking Hidden Value

The morning of day two started with breakout sessions, including a customer advisory board discussion, an “Introduction to Inmation” session for new or prospective customers, and a session highlighting AspenTech Inmation’s WebStudio, an Inmation feature allowing users to easily compile a dashboard of dynamic widgets for data visualization.

After lunch, AspenTech President and CEO Antonio Pietri joined us and discussed the importance of addressing the dual challenge: Meeting the increasing demand for resources from a growing population with rising standards of living, while also addressing sustainability goals. Data of course is critical to meeting this challenge.

Following Antonio’s remarks was a presentation by our colleagues from AspenTech’s APM (Asset Performance Management) group who explained how AspenTech applications seamlessly work with data from Inmation.  

Our DataWorks partner Spartan Controls traveled all the way from Calgary to deliver an engaging presentation on “The Wild West of Inmation” highlighting unconventional use cases. These fun guys captured everyone’s attention with the first use case – increasing mushroom farm yields by 12% using Inmation!

 

Christopher Lloyd and Warren Mitchell from Spartan Controls presenting many uses cases for AspenTech Inmation at the AspenTech DataWorks conference

DataWorks 23 was a huge success, and we are already planning our next event. It was a great time for meeting, networking, and having fun with all our great customers and partners. There was a real sense of community and collaboration that only really comes from in-person events. Thank you to everyone who helped make DataWorks 23 a reality.