Our Industrial Life

Guests: Allen Turner, Advanced Analytics Team Lead, International Paper
Co-host: Mariana Sandin, Industry Principal, AVEVA.


We speak with Allen Turner of International Paper (IP) about the unique challenges of digital transformation in a legacy industry like pulp and paper. Mr. Turner, as part of International Paper’s global technology team, is working on an initiative called “mill of the future,” which focuses on cost savings and optimization across International Paper’s mills. Mr. Turner lays out the importance of establishing foundational data quality—or “cleaning up the messy basement” of old data tags and stale data tags—in order to ensure a successful digital transformation project.

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Guests: Pat Harrell, District Engineer,  Josh Gregory, Water Loss Analyst, and Kim Klotter, Wastewater Coordinator. 
Co-host: Gary Wong, Industry Principal, AVEVA.


The White House Utility District (WHUD) is the largest water utility in Tennessee by geography, serving consumers and businesses just north of Nashville. Since it started making better use of its sensor-based data using state-of-the-art IIoT (industrial internet of things) technologies in 2016, its infrastructure leakage index (ILI) decreased from 1.49 to 0.76. In this episode we talk about pressure management, leaks, and I&I with those who made the changes to improve their operation.

Water Loss Analyst Josh Gregory explains how they view their sensor-based data on ArcGIS map displays, how they divide their service area into district measured areas (DMAs), and how calculations of the water flows within each DMA allows them to focus on the important locations to improve leak detection. District Engineer Pat Harrell describes using advanced pressure management to determine the causes of leaks and what changes this allows them to make to how their operate their equipment. Wastewater Coordinator Kim Klotter describes how more easily accessible flowmeter data and calculations allows her to better hone in on locations of inflow and infiltration (I&I). 

Co-hosting this episode is Gary Wong, industry principal for water at AVEVA. 

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Guests: David Mitchell, Automation Engineer, Weber Metals. 
Sean Upson, Systems Engineer, AVEVA. 


David Mitchell is an automation engineer at Weber Metals, a major supplier of aluminum and titanium forgings to the aerospace industry. Among the thousands of things Weber manages with sensor-based data is a 60,000 ton forging press that is the world’s largest private investment in aerospace metal forging. When Weber installed the PI System it was to consolidate various silos of sensor-based data into a single source to improve situational awareness. Over time Mitchell found more valuable uses for the data. For example by comparing each forging to other forgings in a production campaign operators now have a "golden batch" profile that helps them improve the quality of each forging. Integration with their MES (manufacturing execution system) further improves their ability to meet production targets by having all pertinent information in a common data infrastructure. Improved visualization tools allow Weber to identify more easily anomalies and thus detect and troubleshoot more effectively quality, compliance, and maintenance issues.

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Guests: Emelio Anglés, Information Technology Engineer, Kellogg Company
Ted Combs, Industry Principal for Food, Beverage, and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG), AVEVA


Information technology engineer Emelio Anglés of Kellogg Company is part of the Smart Factory project to digitalize all of Kellogg's manufacturing plants. He describes the different stages of this multi-year project to move from siloed PLCs using 5 different protocols to a single source of all data using a single protocol. Among the benefits he describes are a 50% reduction in mean time between failure on packing lines, a reduction of energy use over 15 years, and shortening production meetings from 45 minutes to as little as 15 minutes. Kellogg's can compare the efficiency of cereal plants from around the world using a single source of data.

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Guests: Berkan Fidan, Performance and Process Director, Oyak Cement
Martin Provencher, Mining Metals and Materials Industry Principal, AVEVA


Berkan Fidan describes a team approach to improving cement operations with sensor-based data. He started a 2016 digitalization project at Oyak Cement in Turkey, which leads Europe in cement production. As the performance and process director of his nation's largest cement producer he was trying to address the realities of cement production: enormous energy and heat costs and a product that sells for less than bottled water. He created a team consisting of production personnel from 7 cement plants and 3 grinding plants around the world and implemented a data collection and visualization system they referred to as Cement 4.0.  Fidan reports his team did 90% of the work themselves. Among their accomplishments are 1) creating digital twins of their plants in Analysis Framework where they used a template of a kiln ID fan they created themselves to enforce common benchmarks and visualizations across their entire organization, 2) defining conditions for email notifications to local and corporate stakeholders of cement rotary kiln stoppage, and 3) creating event frames definitions to track and analyze mean time between failure.

By engaging local production personnel who found the system easy to use and popular, the system has seen organization-wide adoption and he attributes a clear improvement in KW per ton to the cultural change that has resulted. 

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Guests: Michael Orcutt, Vice President of Sales and Engineering, CosaTron
Richard Klein, Senior Product Marketing Manager, OSIsoft
Daniel Noonen, Partner Solution Architect


A manufacturer of advanced air purification systems can now monitor and provide analysis of indoor air quality remotely. 

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Guest: Brian Hobby, Technical Lead (IT and Engineering)
Organization: Griffith University
Industry: facilities. 
Business Impact: energy management.

"If it's an edge case, and things need to talk to each other, that's where I sit" said Brian Hobby in our latest Radio PI podcast. With OSIsoft's facilities industry principal Scott Smith he talked about their data architecture, using sensor-based data to save energy, approaches to measuring occupancy, network security, and many other topics. He describes how they bring data from three generations of Schneider Electric equipment in their BMS (Building Management System) into their PI System and their current use and future plans for that data. He shows live demos of more than a dozen dashboards currently being used and describes the value they gain from each because of the improved visibility.

Visit us at https://www.osisoft.com/resource-library/ to search through thousands of use cases by customers in the world's largest process and production industries. See https://pages.osisoft.com/DC-CORP-2020-Q4-Radio-PI-Podcast.html to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Guest: Glen Milne, Production Systems Manager
Organization: Spirit Energy

Glen Milne, Production Systems Manager at Spirit Energy, talked with us about the value of defining specific goals in your use of sensor-based data. He describes several examples of using an 80/20 approach to deliver minimum viable products to operations and gain buy in.  Since the project start in 2017, the changes to how they are using their sensor-based data have increased production, standardized data visualizations across their organization, and given operators more warning time for critical events. 

Visit us at https://www.osisoft.com/resource-library/ to search through thousands of use cases by customers in the world's largest process and production industries. See https://pages.osisoft.com/DC-CORP-2020-Q4-Radio-PI-Podcast.html to subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify.

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Guest: Kyle Kotaich, Senior Data Analyst
Organization: Deschutes Brewery

Kyle Kotaich is a senior data analyst at Deschutes Brewery, a family-owned independent craft brewery in Oregon. In this episode he describes how he is using sensor-based data and machine learning to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and improve the fermentation process of craft beers. 

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Dr. J. Patrick Kennedy, founder and CEO of OSIsoft, on lessons learned from 40 years in the sensor-based data business. 

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