Published 27/03/2019

A recent global innovation survey by BCG* has highlighted a group of top 50 companies embracing and implementing new technology in the pursuit of new products, services, and ways of working.

Of the top 50 companies listed as most innovative, some 18 companies are also active participants in the Open Process Automation Forum (OPAF).

OPAF is the latest industry led push to deliver an interoperable technology paradigm and was instigated by the team at ExxonMobil on the back of the distributed control system (DCS) obsolescence challenge.

ExxonMobil conducted a series of studies to assess options and ultimately found that open interoperability would unlock the most value. From this, The Open Group and Lockheed Martin were engaged to define a strategy that would enable open standards interoperability to become a reality.

Key to this strategy was ensuring that there was sufficient industry support and collaboration to create a standard that met all requirements and as such, creating a sufficient market to justify investment in technology improvements by the vendor community.

Further, it was noted that multiple industries use process control and operations management technologies requiring a cross industry effort to really effect change.

A beacon of true innovation and testament to the global drive for tangible results, OPAF has so far amassed over 130 participating companies across multiple industries, oil and gas, chemical, pharmaceuticals, discreet manufacturing, process automation and operations management/MES technology vendors, as well as many others.

OPAF and the Open Group have already tasted success in early February this year with having recently taken the major step of publishing their preliminary O-PAS, Version 1.0, at ARC Advisory Group's Industry Forum in Orlando. The five-part document addresses emerging technologies and though likely to incorporate some changes before being published as a full Open Group standard, OPAF has reported it is focused on meeting minimum standard and specification requirements for process automation systems and provides an open, vendor-neutral reference architecture for building scalable, reliable, interoperable and secure systems.

Contributing to this success is Perth based Enterprise Transformation Partners (ETP) who are engaged in contributing to ISA and OPAF standards with a specific focus on ensuring they cover mining use cases and include the specific architecture required to support a highly integrated, continually optimising mining operation.

To achieve this paradigm, an interoperability standard must be created that covers all use cases for interoperability and this must be agreed upon by the mining industry. Only then can mining vendors build technology that aligns to the standard, thus creating an interoperable technology marketplace.

ETP are currently the lead researchers on two joint projects that aim to make this operating paradigm possible by the end of 2021.

Developing an interoperability standard that meets the entire industry's requirements, across open pit and underground mining and across any commodity, is no trivial task and is a process and information automation engineering effort requiring relevant skills and experience to define the standard.

John Kirkman, Managing Director at ETP, recently presented as a guest speaker at the Global Mining Group's Interoperability Forum held in Adelaide in March on two industry leading projects, The AMIRA led AMIRA P1208 Project and the UWA I4.0 Energy & Resources Digital Interoperability (ERDi) Test Lab Project.

Both are working examples of platforms enabling mining companies to actively participate and extract maximum value out of the significant investments being made into OPAF.

The AMIRA P1208 Project is enabling a collaboration between mining companies to align on a set of standards incrementally via the OPAF standards group. The AMIRA P1208 Project proposal is currently available to the forty AMIRA International mining members, with finalisation of sponsors earmarked for end of April 2019. Mining companies whom are not members but wish to participate in the project are encouraged to contact AMIRA or ETP directly.

Project Lead John Kirkman stated "Rio Tinto and VALE are both recognised in BCG's top 50 innovative companies for 2019 which is great recognition of their focus on leveraging technology to improve business models, improve safety and reduce the environmental impacts of mining. As AMIRA International members, we are hopeful they join many of their peers from other industries in participating in enabling the next generation of automation and optimisation technology by contributing to OPAF via the AMIRA P1208 Project and make good utilisation of the state of the art UWA i4.0 ERDi Test Lab facility."

The P1208 Project enables miners to collectively leverage a team of interoperability subject matter experts whom will ultimately undertake the engineering work to define and test the standards against mining requirements, whilst also providing education and advisory services regarding transiting to interoperable architectures.

In parallel and a sister to the AMIRA P1208 project - the UWA I4.0 ERDi Test Lab Project is constructing a physical Lab that will enable the testing and trialling of the standards, technology conformance, research, showcases and workforce enablement.

The P1208 Project will make use of this state-of-the-art test lab for research and testing of interoperability standard concepts and technology, to add a quality dimension to the OPAF work and foster innovation, thereby enabling early as possible implementation of interoperable architectures.

The UWA I4.0 ERDi Test Lab project is sponsored by the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science's I4.0 TestLab Scheme, which has provided grant funding to six university test labs around Australia, each with its own unique focus. Lab build activities are scheduled to commence in April 2019 and will be centrally located in the Perth CBD.

Not just open to companies involved in OPAF, any mining technology companies that have an interest in providing interoperable products are encouraged to register their details on the ERDi website (https://erditestlab.com/) to be kept informed about events, lab development and standards development progress, as well as learn how to get involved directly in the standards development work being undertaken.

To find out more about this story and anything in it, please contact ETP directly info@etpartners.com.au

*BCG Source: https://www.bcg.com/en-au/default.aspx