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GE launches Predix-power application for the industrial internet
GE’s digital division is now a fully fledged software business with the introduction of an asset performance management system
GE Digital has introduced its first commercial application based on the company’s Predix platform.
The software, called GE Asset Performance Management (APM), uses data and cloud-based analytics to improve the reliability and availability of industrial assets.
GE said APM can be used to minimise the total cost of ownership and reduce operational risks for both GE and non-GE assets.
Derek Porter, product lead for APM at GE, said: “Oil, gas, power and transportation are asset-centric and process-centric businesses, which share a common problem. People need to be able to connect to assets.”
While APM is not a new concept, said GE Digital, companies have previously been forced to integrate a range of disparate software to monitor and maintain their industrial equipment.
According to the company, enterprise asset management (EAM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems can report on how equipment is used and maintained, but they cannot analyse the volumes of diagnostic data that can be processed with big data techniques to predict and prevent equipment issues.
“No comprehensive system has existed to support the industrial data generated by these assets,” said GE.
Porter said GE Turbines worked with one of its customers, RasGas, to mitigate the risk of downtime on GE and non-GE machines.
GE used a combination of comparative analysis, forensic analysis, machine learning and data science to create a set of blueprints, which it has developed into its Asset Performance Management tool.
APM is powered by GE’s Predix analytics platform. It uses asset physics and industrial software to provide cloud-based asset performance management.
Porter said GE APM is being used by 12 customers, but he hopes to grow this tenfold in a year. “We would like to publish best practices and thought leadership and open up the market in 12 months,” he said.
He added this would allow third parties to publish additional capabilities on a GE APM catalogue, which they could then charge a premium for.
