Building the cities of the future
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Building the cities of the future WRITTEN BY
OLIVER MULKERRINS PRODUCED BY
KRIS PALMER
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AV E VA
AVEVA USE UNIFIED DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION TO MODERNISE INFRASTRUCTURE AND BUSINESS PROCESSES
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VEVA is a global leader in engineering and industrial software that is driving digital transformation across the entire
asset and operational life cycle of capital-intensive industries. The company’s asset performance, engineering, monitoring and control, and planning 04
and operations solutions deliver proven results to over 16,000 customers across the globe. AVEVA has over 4,400 employees at 80 locations in over 40 countries. The company’s robust solution portfolio offers an unmatched set of offerings covering every aspect of industrial operations from simulation, engineering and construction through asset performance and real-time manufacturing operations management. This combination delivers improved profitability and operational excellence across capitalintensive industries. Improved design, performance and productivity, helps AVEVA customers achieve the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) and highest return on capital investment.
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“ What matters is ‘ease of use’ and ‘empowerment’ of the users, which can reduce their workload and increase overall efficiency” 06
— Sayaji Shinde, the Business Head of Smart City, Smart Infrastructure and Smart Water
The demand for the modernization of city infrastructure has never been higher. In this everchanging climate, AVEVA has been tasked with establishing smart solutions to modern problems in Asia’s cities and businesses by using integrated data technology to unify sectors of a business or city. Sayaji Shinde heads up the programme as the Business Head of Smart City, Smart Infrastructure and Smart Water. “Over the past few decades, industries have been investing heavily in digitalisation of operations, process and stakeholder engagements,” he explains. “Sectors like banking, telecommunication, manufacturing and retail have transformed their business using the latest technology and trends, to achieve higher operational efficacies reduce cost and improve profits.” A recent digitalisation trend in infrastructure industry has been the implementation of solutions that deal with an individual department problem, independent from the bigger picture. Dubbed silo solutions, this methodology of tackling these operational inefficiencies on an individual department or operation basis can produce
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complications down the line. Gaps
of infrastructure is very different than
in deployed silo solutions across the
the rest of the industries, as infrastruc-
variety of domains may give rise to hu-
ture is typically operated with the help
man errors, as information becomes
of engineering technologies and IT.
fragmented between an organisation’s
Many IT companies are trying to offer
various departments.
solutions, however, their offerings ex-
The operations involved in airports,
hibit a lack of understanding, experi-
sea ports, railways, metros, cities,
ence and capability to leverage the
water systems, tunnels and townships
engineering technology.”
must realise the need to develop their
Digital transformation of smart in-
road map for digital transformation to
frastructure requires some degree of
unify their approach to problem solv-
automation to be in place. The journey
ing, as Sayaji explains: “The approach
can be much easier to achieve if an
needed for the digital transformation
organisation has invested in automaw w w.aveva . com
AV E VA
tion layers to help leap-frog into more advanced capabilities. Technologies such as Internet of things (IoT), big data analytics and AI grant a level of technological maturity that allows bigger steps into automating people-driven processes and collating information from multiple sectors in real time. Sayaji explains: “City operations are managed through departments which are independent of each other and do not allow city authorities to manage their interdepended functions, for ex08
ample, if road repair work is supposed to be taken up by public departments, the information for this activity may not be shared with traffic departments in advance. ”To aid in the digital transformation of a partner, AVEVA has developed the “Unified Operations Centre” (UOC) a platform technology that helps reduce the cost of a project and ensures successful delivery of the transformational project. The system allows for visibility, navigation and manipulation of infrastructure creating a command centre from which a business can see and interact with the activity across its various domains. AVEVA has also integrated a ‘train the
trainer’ programme, which allows cus-
of the successful delivery through
tomers to have an internal coach
guidance of the technological differ-
for their users. Of the programme,
ences of the offered solutions.” The
Sayaji says “what matters is the ‘ease
second partners, he adds, are “solution
of use’ and ‘empowerment’ of the us-
vendors like intelligent traffic manage-
ers with adequate information to act,
ment, CCTV surveillance, water and
which can reduce their workload while
energy systems. We work with them to
increasing overall efficiency.”
produce integrated solutions to in our
Naturally, such complex projects involve close collaboration with lead-
data platforms.” The UOC is a large component of the
ing partners. Sayaji notes that AVEVA
company’s ‘city in a box’ project. The
defines its partners through two cat-
platform enhances the capabilities
egories: “Prime bidders, such as cities,
of the silo solutions, implemented in
where the partner needs assurance
the early stages of transformation, by
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Sayaji Shinde Mr. Sayaji Shinde is the Business Head, leading AVEVA’s Smart Cities and Infrastructure solution business across Asia Pacific. For the past 15 years he has been working with Government agencies across Asia to help them in transformation projects to deliver better Citizen services. He was engaged in transforming 6 cities as Smart Cities in Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam. He has in-depth knowledge of City Operations, Defense, Tax, Social Services, water/electrical utilities and Transportation functioning. His technical expertise not only includes information technology but also operational control technologies like DCS, SCADA and Instrumentation.
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AV E VA
£766mn Approximate revenue
1967
Year founded
4,400+
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Approximate number of employees
seamlessly integrating these solu-
control their infrastructure through mo-
tions to manage departments across
bile devices, visibility and geographic
a unified platform. “UOC allows con-
information system (GIS) mapping, to
version of IT, OT (operational technol-
give the visualisation of data through
ogy) and IoT applications, centralising
3D mapping work sites.
the operations and managing critical
As well as reducing costs, these
incidences and events and collaborate
technologies can also contribute to
between departments electronically
sustainability through the optimisation
to achieve higher-level efficiencies by
of resource expenditure and con-
leveraging existing investments,” says
trol, such as fuel, energy, water and
Sayaji. This gives users the power to
workforce. This is all made possible
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“ City operations managed through departments independent of each other do not allow city authorities to manage their interdepended functions” — Sayaji Shinde, the Business Head of Smart City, Smart Infrastructure and Smart Water
because users are being given access to information in real time through the transformation and can lead to easy analysis of behaviours in both the physical infrastructure and human action. This data gives actionable intelligence at a glance. To give examples of the practical applications of this technology, Sayaji says “in the case of traffic management, if roads are wired with sensors the data collected about w w w.aveva . com
AV E VA
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“The approach needed for the digital transformation of infrastructure is very different than the rest of the industries.” — Sayaji Shinde, the Business Head of Smart City, Smart Infrastructure and Smart Water
average speed and the volume of vehicles across the stretch of road gives visibility of the traffic pattern through the day. This data can then, not only, be used to manage traffic signal timings but make infrastructure decisions of whether to build a flyover at a junction or just widen the curvature of the road.” The definition of “what is smart” can be a grey area for industry. The concept of digital transformation is constantly evolving to encompass new frontiers without much of a framework and, by designing a transformational approach that can progress with
the birth of new technologies, we can alleviate unnecessary expenditure and target change towards a more focused outcome, Sayaji believes. Despite potential challenges, Sayaji is confident that the business can continue to grow: “Within the past two years, AVEVA has secured five smart city deals and now we are venturing in other areas like airports, sea ports, facility management and data centres.”
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