Digitalization of a complex plant can be overwhelming. If your organization is just getting started on digitalization, this session will provide the essentials, including basic terminology for digitalization, a commonly used roadmap, and best practices that could help you avoid pitfalls. The session will include presentations on case studies and an overview of technology approaches that could help you progress each step of the way.

• Sarah Kline Hanara Software
  Sarah Kline

  Title: General Manager
  Company: Hanara Software

  Sarah Kline was the first hire for HanAra in the U.S., joining the company in 2016. As the General Manager, she leads the daily operations of the organization and coordinates engineering and technical support, planning, and sales and marketing. She is focused on developing new markets, increasing the market share in the U.S., and maintaining a competitive position in the industry. Her goal and the rest of the team is to help organizations break through the limitations. Sarah brings significant international business and manufacturing expertise to HanAra. Before joining the company, she served as a technology assessment researcher for the Global Commercialization Group/IC2 Institute at The University of Texas at Austin, a post that led directly to her joining HanAra. Adding to her international experience, Sarah also served as a policy research team member at the LBJ School of Public Affairs where she assisted on the Manufacturing Trends in Texas and Mexico project. Sarah holds dual degrees from Texas Christian University — a Bachelor of Science in Economics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science — graduating Summa Cum Laude. She also earned her Master of Global Policy Studies from The University of Texas, LBJ School of Public Affairs.

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  Focusing on Business Intelligence with a Data Historian
  How do you define the value of equipment data? By the business and operational results it provides. Before results are possible, you must have the necessary structure to collect, archive, and manage the vast amount of equipment data a site creates every minute of the day. Organizations rely on their data historians to provide this, but the data historian of the past is different from the data historian of today or the future. By combining the reliability and accuracy of data historians with improved analysis and visualization tools, an organization can increase the business intelligence created by evaluating and analyzing equipment data. To do this, an organization must ensure it has a solution and process set up five key activities: collect, archive, visualize, analyze, and collaborate. Using these key activities, an organization can manage and evaluate the current intelligence provided by its data historian and identify areas of improvement. Using examples from real-world applications, we will discuss common pitfalls and opportunities when transforming data into meaningful business intelligence. During this session, the audience will understand: • The technological requirements of the architecture and solutions to ensure safe and secure data usage, • The change management requirements of an organization to ensure reliable data-informed decision-making, and • The necessary future planning of the industry to reduce resource obstacles and to improve collaboration. Keywords: Data Historian, Business Intelligence, Data Analytics, Data Management

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• Michael Reid PhD Duke Energy
  Michael Reid

  Title: General Manager of Technical Programs
  Company: Duke Energy

  The vision for Duke Energy’s Fossil Hydro Operations digital transformation is to identify, prioritize, plan, schedule and effectively execute the right work at the right time. As Digital Transformation Lead, Michael leads execution of the vision which includes developing and deploying a number of technology solutions that are focused on work optimization and employee engagement and enablement. Michael has bachelor and doctorate degrees in mechanical engineering from the Queens University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. He is a registered professional engineer in the United Kingdom and Europe and a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.

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  Understanding remote monitoring
  

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Join us in the Digital Arena for fresh smoothies & light bites as we welcome you to New Orleans. With the energy in the room at an all-time high, you’ll be charged up to connect with like-minded individuals in your industry!

The old adage “hindsight is 20-20” is especially relevant to technology adoption. Don’t rush your digitalization transformation without considering lessons learned. Join us for an open discussion from industry leaders who started their journey years ago, and who will share what they wish they could have known before they started. This session will help you avoid common pitfalls in your journey of technology adoption.

• Dr. Yves Gorat Stommel Evonik Digital
  Yves Gorat Stommel

  Title: Deputy Head Function Evonik Digital
  Company: Evonik Digital

  Yves Gorat Stommel is currently working as the head of the Cognitive Solutions team, with a strong focus on setting-up and implementing a comprehensive, company-wide Artificial Intelligence and data analysis strategy. In his current function, Yves’ motivation stems from bringing together people, technology and positive change. By continuously questioning, improving and re-imagining operational and business processes – amongst others by looking at the company through the new “lens” of enabling and disruptive Artificial Intelligence – value is created for both the company and its employees. This does not only require identifying, benchmarking and implementing best practices, but more importantly targeted communication, linking knowledge and an emphasis on global instead of local mindsets and approaches.

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  Why digital transformation potentially conflicts with organizational structures
  For most companies the point in time came somewhere in the 2010s: digitalization or even digital transformation became a priority to bring the organization into the future. CDOs and CIOs took up the challenge – as did various individuals and teams throughout the respective companies. Evonik, a global specialty chemical company, was no exception. As we quickly learned though, driving digitalization / digital transformation could not be truly successful if perceived as the responsibility of a few dedicated employees only. Digitalization involves a number of broadly applicable enabling technologies and methodologies, whose application and use can differ quite strongly across the company. Discover how Evonik learned to organize digital transformation and the necessary buy-in and accountability.

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• Steven Ford Southern Company
  Steven Ford

  Title: Compliance & Support Manager, Plant Barry
  Company: Southern Company

  Steven Ford is currently the Compliance & Support Manager at Alabama Power's Barry Steam Plant located in Bucks, Alabama. He also serves as the chairman of the Southern Company Technology Leadership Team tasked with ensuring system-wide cost-effective, reliable, and efficient technology solutions supporting the business unit strategy. Steven has worked in leadership roles with increasing responsibility across multiple plant sites in Georgia Power, Gulf Power, and Alabama Power. These roles include Operations Manager, Maintenance Manager, Engineering & Planning Manager, and Plant Manager. He has leadership experience in both coal & natural gas-powered generation, including supercritical, combined cycle, and co-generation technologies supporting some of the state's largest chemical plant customers. In the Spring of 2020, Steven supported the Generation fleet as the COVID Pandemic Coordinator engaging cross-functional support from Supply Chain, Human Resources, IBEW Leadership, Disability Management, and Corporate Compliance to meet the evolving needs of employees working at our generating facilities. Steven believes that being a part of the Alabama Power Generation leadership team allows him to foster a safer working environment, create meaningful professional developmental opportunities for his team, and find ways to improve our generating product through integrated technology. Steven graduated from Georgia Tech with a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering, Georgia State University with a Master's in Business Administration, and Birmingham School of Law with a Juris Doctorate. Steven is married, has four children, and lives in Fairhope, Alabama. In his spare time, Steven enjoys working on cars, playing golf, and spending time traveling with his family.

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• Jaclyn Arnold ReVisionz
  Jaclyn Arnold

  Title: Digitalization Strategy & Consulting – Associate Partner
  Company: ReVisionz

  People do not like change, however the more profound changes toward digital transformation the greater insights and opportunities. Jaclyn’s great passion is assisting industrial facilities to create a vision and plan for innovating their facility. She helps clients reinvent processes which can utilize innovative technology to change how work is performed in plants, ultimately reducing risk and capitalizing profitability. Jaclyn studied Chemical Engineering at Auburn University and proceeded to work over 10 years in fast, demanding operation and maintenance environments assuring risk reduction and production optimization. Her operational experience is influenced by devoting her time to helping operators, leading continuous improvement teams, driving optimization plans, participating in process hazard analyses, designing projects, and implementing process safety management processes. Passionate about processes, she turns to Lean Six Sigma methodologies and technology to modernize how work is performed inside operating facilities. She enjoys spending time in the field to have a real sense of what is needed and how solutions can be built to deliver positive business outcomes. Jaclyn currently resides in Madison, AL. She is married with two daughters, three Goldendoodle dogs and a Chocolate Lab. She enjoys spending time at Smith Lake, visiting Florida beaches, boating, snow skiing, and restoring furniture. Her strongest motivator is making a difference to create a positive legacy, but she is also highly motivated through acquisition of knowledge and creating elegant business solutions.

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  The two most common pitfalls of Digital Twin adoption, and how to avoid them.
  We are at a crossroads in the adoption of Digital Twin technology. On one hand, most vendors can point to at least a couple of ‘satisfied customers’, so clearly some companies have figured it out already. On the other hand, it seems like everyone knows, or has heard of, at least one company that has invested significant resources on a stalled or outright failed Digital Twin implementation. What explains these mixed results, and how can we reassess Digital Twin technology based on what the industry has learned so far, to move this exciting technology into the mainstream? Sharing ‘lessons learned’ – good and bad – from some pioneering Digital Twin rollouts, in this session we will highlight the two most common pitfalls to Digital Twin adoption, both of which are evident in nearly every failed implementation, and how to avoid them to ensure your Digital Twin adoption is successful. Pitfall 1 – Failure to factor in, and move towards, Quality Asset Data. The value of a Digital Twin platform is directly correlated to the quality and accessibility of the asset data that feeds it. As we will demonstrate, the key to success for a Digital Twin rollout is not necessarily being at level 5 on the Asset Information Management maturity scale at the outset of a Digital Twin project, helpful though that is, but rather, having a sufficient level of awareness to be able to realistically map the capabilities of your Digital Twin to the current AIM capability of the organization, with a plan to mature it and roll out a Digital Twin in tandem, to achieve your desired future state. As we will demonstrate, it’s feasible for a company with relatively low AIM maturity to successfully implement a Digital Twin. Pitfall 2 – Inability to capture a solid business case with Return on Investment (ROI). Process industry leaders are already sold on having a robust digitization strategy underpinned by assured, reliable digital engineering master data, maintained and managed throughout the asset life cycle. They just insist on a clear path to ROI before they will fund anything. Again from the point of view of the experience of early adopters, we will highlight the value of identifying specific value drivers and relating them to Digital Twin capabilities as well as business outcomes in categories the business cares about, such as cost reduction, cost avoidance, and efficiency.

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Have you heard the saying “data is the new oil”, and previously “oil is the new gold”? At Albemarle, we have found that to be true. The 4th industrial revolution has already started and Albemarle plans on positioning itself as a leader in the industry when it comes to utilizing our chemical manufacturing data. To capture the value from our data, using economies of scale, we created a global digital transformation initiative called – Project AI, recently awarded the Manufacturing Leadership Award for AI and Machine Learning. This global transformation anchors its foundation on the AVEVA PI System as not only a data infrastructure, but also an analytics engine, alongside our existing partners, Northwest Analytics & Sartorius SIMCA, fueling massive growth and productivity in our manufacturing plants. As the “AI” suggests, plenty of artificial intelligence is involved. But to us, AI means Albemarle Intelligence. Though catchy, the moniker has a deeper purpose: reminding us that all of the ingredients for digital transformation already exist. By enabling and empowering our people with the right technology, we can truly unlock the value of information.

• Jonathan Alexander ALBEMARLE
  Jonathan Alexander

  Title: Manufacturing AI & Advanced Analytics Manager | Albemarle Intelligence
  Company: ALBEMARLE

  Jonathan Alexander is the Manufacturing AI & Advanced Analytics Manager within Albemarle’s global Manufacturing Excellence team. He has held a variety of roles within Manufacturing, including working within both Maintenance & Operations for both the Hydroprocessing Catalyst Plant in Bayport, TX and the Aluminum Alkyl plants in Pasadena, TX, along with leading a site’s Technology Implementation for Competitive Advantage (TICA) program. In his current global role, he has been focused on powering the potential of people by scaling AI (Albemarle Intelligence) and changing Albemarle’s culture around Manufacturing Data Analytics, an integral part of their journey towards Digital Transformation. Mr. Alexander holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Louisiana State University and a Masters in Business Administration from The University of Houston in Clear Lake.

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Get ready for an unforgettable night of celebration at the Bourbon & Blues Game Changer Awards. Enjoy specialty bourbon cocktails, a Cajun quesadilla station, grilled Italian marinated vegetables and a salad duo station. We welcome you to join us for an evening of celebration as we recognize the outstanding achievements of our fast risers in the field!

• Scott Jenkins Chemical Engineering Magazine
  Scott Jenkins

  Title: Senior editor
  Company: Chemical Engineering Magazine

  

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• Sonal Patel POWER magazine
  Sonal Patel

  Title: Senior Associate Editor
  Company: POWER magazine

  A national award–winning multimedia journalist, Sonal Patel has covered a wide range of technology, business, and policy issues affecting the power industry worldwide for POWER and its sister publications since 2008. Along with keeping her eye on national and international matters for POWER magazine’s monthly department Global Monitor, she contributes in-depth analysis and spot news pieces for POWER and POWERnews. She also surveys, crunches, and visualizes power generation data and trends from around the world for POWER’s web and print infographics and other multimedia. She is a graduate of the University of Houston.

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Digitalization, driven by big data, the industrial internet of things (IIOT), and even artificial intelligence (AI), has made its mark on the energy, chemical process, and other process-heavy industries. The transformation of analog or manual processes into digital ones has shown big gains in enabling greater transparency into process-intensive operations and helped to ramp up efficiency, reliability, and profitability.
But as industry complexities evolve, so too must their ability to solve intricate problems. Quantum computing, a form of computing that uses the principles of quantum mechanics to perform certain types of calculations much faster than classical computers, may provide a solution. While commercial quantum computers are only just emerging, quantum computing is showing promise in several fields like materials science, finance, cryptography, logistics, and energy systems. In the IIOT landscape, quantum computing could play a potentially significant role in enabling faster and more efficient data processing, simulation, optimization, and machine learning.
Join us for this series of keynote addresses, during which we will hear more about the future potential of fully quantum computers, as well as the current capabilities of quantum-inspired computing. Our group of experienced speakers will provide an understanding of what quantum computers are and how they might be used in the future, while also explaining how quantum-inspired computing could help solve difficult problems at CPI and power plants right now.

• Alan Ho Engineer and Entrepreneur
  Alan Ho

  Title: Former - Product Management Lead - Google Quantum AI
  Company: Engineer and Entrepreneur

  

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• Christian Gogolin Covestro
  Christian Gogolin

  Title: Quantum Computing Expert @Covestro R&D | Quantum Information Scientist and Software Developer | Founder Quantum Journal
  Company: Covestro

  

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• Masoud Mosheni Google
  Masoud Mosheni

  Title: Senior Research Scientist
  Company: Google

  

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Take a morning break at our Dunker and Donuts Social that is sure to give you the boost you need to tackle the day. Indulge in an array of mouthwatering donuts and buttermilk corn dogs paired with your favorite assorted iced tea or Starbucks Frappuccino!

Digital twins vary in functionality and understanding their different approaches, applicability, and challenges may help you hone in on a solution or process that best fits your organization. Experts at this session will discuss the different types of digital twins and their many different applications across many industries to solve maintenance operations and field work initiatives. This includes utilizing digital twins to create advisories and workflow opportunities.

• Piya Dey Celanese Corporation
  Piya Dey

  Title: Director, Digital Manufacturing Transformation
  Company: Celanese Corporation

  Piya Dey is currently managing Digital Products (Fluid Genius™) at Eastman Chemical Company, a $9+ billion annual sales revenue company. In this capacity she is instrumental in discovering, building, and introducing Eastman digital products into various markets to drive new revenue streams and create market differentiation for Eastman. Prior to this role, Piya led high performing business teams through strategy and choices needed for growth and profitability. She has also led Business Enablement Digital Transformation initiatives where she set up intelligent automation organization at Eastman which utilized deep customer insight to drive process and talent transformation to win with the customers. Piya joined Eastman as the Department Head for “Application Architecture” where she managed multiple global solution development teams. Before joining Eastman, Piya held leadership roles at KeyBank and Progressive Casualty Insurance, where she managed teams responsible for delivery of solutions across various customer channels. Piya holds an MBA with a major in Asset and Wealth Management from both Carnegie Mellon University, USA and The University of Lausanne, Switzerland. She also holds a Master’s in computer application from OU, India. Piya resides in Kingsport, TN along with her husband and two sons. Piya is deeply passionate and committed to mentoring and sponsoring others as well as bringing innovative ideas to her company’s diversity and inclusiveness efforts. Outside of work, Piya enjoys dance, music and volunteering for multiple organizations and local schools.

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• Brenda Stout Celanese Corporation
  Brenda Stout

  Title: Vice President, Manufacturing
  Company: Celanese Corporation

  Brenda Stout is currently the Vice President of Manufacturing for Acetyls at Celanese joining. After spending 13 years with BP and Ineos in a variety of technical, financial and commercial roles, she joined Shell in 2006 where she spent most of her tenure serving in key management positions at several refineries across Shell’s Global Manufacturing business in addition to a role in London managing manufacturing strategy. She managed Shell’s Pulau Bukom Manufacturing Site in Singapore and was the Vice President of Manufacturing Support, Excellence and Ventures before joining Celanese in June of last year. Brenda graduated from Texas A&M University in 1993 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering.

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  Understanding the Digital Twin and How Celanese is moving it forward
  Outlining what digital twins can be and what's next

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• Samir Khanna BP Oil Co
  Samir Khanna

  Company: BP Oil Co

  

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  How BP is Transitioning their product offerings using Digital Twins
  Using Simulations to solve complex math problems to take BP to the future

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This session will include several case studies showing how artificial intelligence (AI) is already being used at operational power and chemical plants. Studies will explore how data may be analyzed and categorized from the data historian, and how AI is being used for remote monitoring and automation to reduce the burden on control-room managers.

• Dr. Yves Gorat Stommel Evonik Digital
  Yves Gorat Stommel

  Title: Deputy Head Function Evonik Digital
  Company: Evonik Digital

  Yves Gorat Stommel is currently working as the head of the Cognitive Solutions team, with a strong focus on setting-up and implementing a comprehensive, company-wide Artificial Intelligence and data analysis strategy. In his current function, Yves’ motivation stems from bringing together people, technology and positive change. By continuously questioning, improving and re-imagining operational and business processes – amongst others by looking at the company through the new “lens” of enabling and disruptive Artificial Intelligence – value is created for both the company and its employees. This does not only require identifying, benchmarking and implementing best practices, but more importantly targeted communication, linking knowledge and an emphasis on global instead of local mindsets and approaches.

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• Javier Garcia Sedano OPTIMITIVE Group
  Javier Garcia Sedano

  Company: OPTIMITIVE Group

  

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• Berk Birand, Ph.D. Fero Labs
  Berk Birand, Ph.D.

  Title: CEO
  Company: Fero Labs

  

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Please join us in the Digital Arena for a unique tasting of local bites. From savory snacks to sweet treats, there’s something to satisfy every craving. The Canal Street Tasting includes a mix of king cake popcorn, caramel peanut brittle, jerky brown bagged fruit and a ton of mason jar snacks!

The rapid advancements in technology bring many opportunities and benefits to individuals and organizations, but they also come with challenges. This session will present three separate topics that address technology challenges that affect us all and may need to be aware of for the future. Staying informed and understanding how these challenges are affecting us today and tomorrow is the key to better practices and security for the future.

Get ready to let loose and celebrate in style with our Mardi Gras Masquerade Party. Enjoy our live DJ and a variety of delicious foods and beverages. Mardi Gras attire is all about vibrant colors, bold patterns and extravagant accessories. We look forward to seeing you in the Digital Arena for a festive evening!

Open architecture refers to technology infrastructure with non-proprietary specifications that enables interoperability. This session will cover developments in industrywide efforts to realize lifecycle benefits through the development of open, standards-based, interoperable process automation architecture and related business processes.

• David DeBari ExxonMobil Corporation
  David DeBari

  Title: Process Control Engineer
  Company: ExxonMobil Corporation

  David DeBari is an Innovator and a Process Control Engineer for the ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company. He has many years of automation experience in both continuous and batch processes and has built, migrated, or replaced many control systems on numerous projects. David is the Lead Engineer and one of the original members of ExxonMobil’s Open Process Automation Program Team. He has provided technical leadership for the proof of concept and pilot unit prototype projects, and leads the current Test Bed and Field Trial activities for the ExxonMobil Program.

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• Michael Clark OPC Foundation
  Michael Clark

  Title: Director, North America
  Company: OPC Foundation

  

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Today’s digitalization tools can empower your staff to consistently make the best possible decisions in their day-to-day roles. This session will cover worker-focused solutions, with applications spanning operator rounds, lockout-tagout, and asset/event/work management. Solutions for digitizing forms and making data entry more efficient will be discussed.

• Bob Hooper Hexagon ALI
  Bob Hooper

  Title: Senior Industry Consultant
  Company: Hexagon ALI

  Bob has over 30 years successful experience in the development and implementation of corporate operational excellence, maintenance, integrity, turnaround and reliability programs within the oil and gas, electric power, consumer products, and specialty chemicals industries. Significant bottom-line success in safety, compliance, cost reductions and manufacturing capability improvements and ERP and APM implementations. Bob is adept at strategic program management, budget development, P&L responsibility, change management, leadership development and coaching, and staff organization/development. Bob has an Electrical Engineering Degree from West Coast University and The Pennsylvania State University and is a veteran of the U.S. Navy Submarine service.

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  What is connected worker and how does it differ from the digital worker?
  What exactly is the connected worker and how does it differ from the digital worker? Connected Worker is a class of technologies that brings together plant operators, maintenance teams, and other workers with the critical information and applications they need to do their jobs more efficiently and productively. They enhance training, capture knowledge, increase efficiency and improve safety across their operations. The digital worker is sometimes used synonymously with connected worker but in fact is not the same. The digital worker is often used to describe software tools that actually take the place of a human. Chat bots are one example of a digital worker. With the large growth in the Connected worker market size employers have invested in more digital ways of working, but there’s little evidence these technology solutions are moving the needle on workforce productivity. In order to harvest the aforementioned results, it requires redesigning the virtual and hybrid workplace with humans at the center. Only then can organizations improve the worker experience and deliver real business results. Transforming discrete data into useful decision-making information as well as near real time access to accurate data in the workers hands is foundational to digital transformation and the Connected Worker. Senior Industry Consultant Bob Hooper from Hexagon’s Asset Lifecycle Intelligence division shares some of the common challenges industrial professionals face before, during and after digital transformation and answers how facilities can benefit from digitalization implemented via change management programs from the C-Suite to the shop floor.

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• Kimberly Green Duke Energy
  Kimberly Green

  Title: Lead Business Systems Specialist
  Company: Duke Energy

  Kimberly Green is a Lead Business Systems Specialist in the Technical Programs group at Duke Energy. During the past 28 years she has worked in the power industry across multiple organizations at Duke Energy. Starting her career at Roxboro Plant on the computer crew, she was responsible for troubleshooting issues with the process network and configuring/building simulators. While working at the plant, she was able to assist with implementation of Equipment Reliability programs funded thru EPRI. Transferring to the IT department, she was able to travel across the fleet and provide on-site network, desktop, and application support. The passion for working with the stations and technology then led her to take a position in the Continuous Improvement group. Kimberly then started working with the stations on their Equipment Reliability processes and began to implement PlantView as the technology to support the processes. She is the PlantView SME for Duke as well as the industry and was awarded an EPRI Technology Transfer Award in 2009 for the advancements in technology with PlantView. She is currently leading a couple of digital transformation initiatives as a Product Owner. The products are Compass and Unity and both increase employee productivity and help to better identify and manage risks. Unity is cutting edge with the integration of AI tools like NLP, Contextual Search, and Forecasting.

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  How Duke is using Technology to boost productivity and safety
  o Operator rounds o Work management o Lockout Tagout o Event management

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• Michael Sowell Evonik Corporation
  Michael Sowell

  Title: Director of Digitalization and Process
  Company: Evonik Corporation

  

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  Creating Workflow In the Field
  In the past different production tasks were handled by different people in different systems and on paper. Data that could be accumulated and analyzed was left untapped sitting in dusty files or in someone’s personal excel file. We are now beginning to offer a integrated approach in which tasks are assigned in SAP, workers in the field are notified on their devices, data is automatically fed from checklists back to SAP or the data historians, and work orders are created in the field by the person who first detects the deficiency. The digital workflow ensures no data is left in an isolated system.

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• Preston Johnson CB Technologies, Inc.
  Preston Johnson

  Title: Senior Solutions Manager
  Company: CB Technologies, Inc.

  Preston Johnson is the Solutions Manager for Industrial IoT at CBT, with a technical focus on Predictive Maintenance solutions and systems. Preston builds on 28 years in industrial instrumentation and machine condition monitoring systems at National Instruments, and 4 years at Allied Reliability building predictive maintenance programs with digital technologies. Preston draws from his broad functional background in people and project management, technical and domain expertise in asset monitoring applications, and business development to create and implement comprehensive business strategies for new product development, market introduction, and growth. At CBT, he works with the business development and operations teams to deploy condition monitoring systems and services, reliability solutions, training, and hardware/software systems that improve machinery uptime, reliability, and ultimately, production capacity. Prior to joining the CBT team, Preston held roles in Applications Engineering, Field Sales, Sales Management, Product Management, and Business Development.

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  Digital Workers: Augmented Reality, Training and Failure Prevention
  People are the most important asset plants have. People define and refine their operations and maintenance strategies, they operate plant assets, they identify and execute adjustments and corrective work. Plant personnel on the front line in the plants, greatly benefit from a digital environment as mondain tasks are automated, needed data and information is readily available, and observations and tasks are logged digitally, keeping activity records immediately up to date. Take a quick tour of popular use cases of the digital environment(s) available to plant personnel today. Use cases include training, digital work and inspection procedures, and augmented reality.

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• Andreas Eschbach Eschbach North America Inc.
  Andreas Eschbach

  Title: CEO
  Company: Eschbach North America Inc.

  Andreas Eschbach, CEO of the global software company eschbach (www.eschbach.com) and inventor of the award-winning plant process management (PPM) platform, innovated Shiftconnector to help production teams streamline shift-to-shift communications and enable a safer and smarter environment through better data sharing and workforce collaboration. Holding a degree in computer science, Andreas draws his practical experience from leading a variety of international software initiatives for major process manufacturing companies, especially in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. He holds a seat on the Forbes Technology Council and recently was named as one of the top 25 industry leaders to transform smart manufacturing by the professional association SME, both of which are committed to advancing manufacturing and developing a skilled and collaborative workforce.

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  How AI Transforms Plant Process Management
  As plants digitize operations, they naturally create a vast organizational knowledge bank that can drive efficiency and performance improvement. Organizational knowledge, and harder-to-find tribal knowledge — that is knowledge not written down like a best practice that an operator may use — can be transformed into job-specific knowledge and insights. With the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI), this data can be processed quickly and becomes a huge advantage for workers. Applications that offer intelligent features using Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) are the next step in building people-centered Plant Process Management systems. In the past, tribal knowledge transfer was often person-to-person and informal; long-time employees knew the history and typical behavior of the equipment they operated or maintained, and information between shifts was passed through informal conversations, logbooks, and standup morning meetings. Today, more plants are digitizing operations and knowledge transfer. Plant Performance Management (PPM) solutions act as a centralized digital database, collecting all information pertinent to operations, maintenance, and plant performance in one place.

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Experience the taste of New Orleans with the Iconic Beignets & Coffee Break located in the Digital Arena. Savor the flavor of freshly made beignets, king cake bites, creole pralines and much more.

• Jane Arnold Independent Consultant
  Jane Arnold

  Company: Independent Consultant

  Jane Arnold is the Vice President of Advanced Manufacturing Technology at Stanley Black and Decker. Her focus is to improve Digitalization in Manufacturing with a special emphasis on emerging technologies including additive manufacturing. Arnold is a graduate of Oxford University’s Business Economic Program and has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Houston. Arnold has over 30 years of experience in manufacturing technology, control engineering and operations. She joined Stanley Black and Decker in February of 2021.

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The large volume of data available from modern monitoring instruments is only useful if the information collected is of high quality. This session will include case studies about data quality principles. It will also cover lessons learned from a recent uptick in the adoption of cloud computing, the importance of data integrity and governance, and the shift toward a plant-based data perspective.

• Tim Michaelson International Paper
  Tim Michaelson

  Title: Principal Data Scientist
  Company: International Paper

  

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  Tracking and Improving Data Quality in Real Time
  International Paper is the world’s leading producer of fiber-based packaging, pulp, and paper. Its “Mill of the Future” is changing the way process information is consumed and optimized. With a fleet of 29 mills, 46 servers, and more than 2M tags, the accuracy of the data gathered and stored in its OSIsoft PI historians is of the highest priority. The capability to track, report, and improve data health over time ensures decisions, process improvements, and models built on this data are reliable. At CPC 2022, International Paper shared the effects of bad tags cause operators to distrust the data, advanced models to fail, and the assessment and certification of data health at scale practically impossible. Months of manual inspection of PI tags by the Advanced Analytics team at International Paper estimated that 4.2% of tags were “bad”. We suspected, however, the reality was much higher. Applying APERIO to specific sets of data, International Paper ran three use cases: 1. Asset Data Quality: Determine Data Quality Index (DQI) by mill and overall. Use event severity and duration of critical tags to help determine impact on DQI. 2. Process Improvement: Determine how many tags are “bad” and prioritize remediation by event type: high error rate, no data, flatlines, out of range, outliers, abrupt changes, noise, sample rate errors, binary correlations, and/or state correlations. Track DQI improvement over time. 3. Advanced Models: Determine if any of the tags used in multivariate data analysis and predictive analytics models are “bad”. Use root cause analysis for early detection of data issues. The results confirm systemic poor quality at International Paper. The revealing results of each use case will be shared during the session. With these learnings, International Paper will also share its future state: scaling to more than 1M tags and applying APERIO DataWise to detect sensor drift and non-calibration.

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• Jonas Hellgren APERIO Systems
  Jonas Hellgren

  Title: CEO
  Company: APERIO Systems

  Jonas Hellgren is CEO of Aperio Systems. Jonas has a computer science background with over 30 years of experience in software development. Aperio is the leader in industrial data integrity solutions. We help customers drive profitability and sustainability goals while mitigating risk in their industrial operations. Aperio AI automatically validates operational data at scale to improve data accuracy, security, and value, allowing for better, smarter business decisions based on real-time, trusted, superior data

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  Tracking and Improving Data Quality in Real Time
  International Paper is the world’s leading producer of fiber-based packaging, pulp, and paper. Its “Mill of the Future” is changing the way process information is consumed and optimized. With a fleet of 29 mills, 46 servers, and more than 2M tags, the accuracy of the data gathered and stored in its OSIsoft PI historians is of the highest priority. The capability to track, report, and improve data health over time ensures decisions, process improvements, and models built on this data are reliable. At CPC 2022, International Paper shared the effects of bad tags cause operators to distrust the data, advanced models to fail, and the assessment and certification of data health at scale practically impossible. Months of manual inspection of PI tags by the Advanced Analytics team at International Paper estimated that 4.2% of tags were “bad”. We suspected, however, the reality was much higher. Applying APERIO to specific sets of data, International Paper ran three use cases: 1. Asset Data Quality: Determine Data Quality Index (DQI) by mill and overall. Use event severity and duration of critical tags to help determine impact on DQI. 2. Process Improvement: Determine how many tags are “bad” and prioritize remediation by event type: high error rate, no data, flatlines, out of range, outliers, abrupt changes, noise, sample rate errors, binary correlations, and/or state correlations. Track DQI improvement over time. 3. Advanced Models: Determine if any of the tags used in multivariate data analysis and predictive analytics models are “bad”. Use root cause analysis for early detection of data issues. The results confirm systemic poor quality at International Paper. The revealing results of each use case will be shared during the session. With these learnings, International Paper will also share its future state: scaling to more than 1M tags and applying APERIO DataWise to detect sensor drift and non-calibration.

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• Thierry Cartage SOLVAY
  Thierry Cartage

  Title: Senior Vice President Process Performance & Digital
  Company: SOLVAY

  Graduated in Mechanical Engineering completed by a PhD in Applied Sciences, Thierry has gained experience in Innovation, Communication, Research & Development and Technology in the process industry sector. He spent more than 30 years at Solvay, holding several positions related to the Group's industrial activities and for the last 5 years, he was in charge, as Senior Vice President, of Process Performance and Digital Transformation. He brings his industrial expertise and his strategic vision to guide companies in the technological evaluation of their investments, to support them in digital transformation & Industry 4.0 implementation, to help them meet their challenges in terms of performance, sustainability, growth and human commitment. Today, he oversees consultancy assignments in these areas and acts as an expert to support Belgian Walloon Chemical, Rubber and Plastic Processing companies transition to Digitalization.

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  Why trust in data is a pre-requisite for digital transformation
  The digital transformation holds a tremendous potential for companies, however very few have already achieved massive gains at scale. Solvay is one of the chemical companies leading by example with their transformation. Thierry Cartage (Director Process Performance @Solvay) will share his learnings from the Solvay transformation. What worked well, where to pay extra attention, best practices… One key takeaway – it all starts with the data.

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• Bert Baeck Timeseer.ai
  Bert Baeck

  Title: CEO & Co-Founder
  Company: Timeseer.ai

  Bert is co-founder and CEO of "Timeseer.AI". Before, he worked as a partner in a technology Venture Capital firm for three years (Smartfin Capita- $400M AUM). Bert is also one of the founders of Trendminer, acquired by Software AG in 2018, where he became CEO in 2014. Bert started his career (2004) in the chemical industry, working as a data expert for Covestro. Bert holds a master's in computer science with a major in AI. He currently holds Board positions at several technology companies such as Versasense, Locatee, and Rombit. Bert is also visiting Professor Data Management and Analytics of the University of Leuven.

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  The road to operational data excellence
  Achieving operational data excellence in industrial manufacturing requires reliable data, achieved through DataOps and strong data governance. This involves processes and technologies for data collection, management and analysis, driving continuous improvement with insights. The ultimate goal is a data-rich environment for informed decision-making, optimized operations, and improved competitiveness. Embracing operational data excellence, including DataOps and effective governance, unleashes the potential of AI and analytics to meet desired outcomes.

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• Rooha Khan BASF Corporation
  Rooha Khan

  Title: Production Engineer, BASF Geismar
  Company: BASF Corporation

  

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  How BASF is Growing Analytics Maturity in Operations to Meet Today's Business Challenges
  BASF has started their digitalization journey a few years back to enable all operational experts to make data-driven decisions and contribute to the evolving company goals. With their growing organizational analytics maturity, they did see a diversification at personal levels. Not every operational expert is a data scientist; while more machine learning models need to find their way to the shop floor for meeting today's business challenges. To make next steps in their journey further alignment between technology, people and processes is needed. In this presentation, Rooha Khan, Production Engineer at BASF Geismar, will outline her journey in which TrendMiner as a versatile Industrial Analytics solution is pivotal for her success. Rooha will discuss practical use cases that show that operational experts at each analytics maturity level, from trend viewing to prescriptive analytics, can contribute to the organizational goals. This includes utilizing TrendMiner to monitor critical plant parameters, thus freeing up time to pursue other projects. She also has found TrendMiner can provide quick ways to review plant performance to find optimization opportunities quickly.

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Looking for a refreshing and relaxed way to unwind after a long day? Join us at the NOLA Poolside Happy Hour to connect with others one last time and enjoy the beautiful scenery of New Orleans. We will offer a BLT salad bar with a chef crafted pasta station that you don’t want to miss!