Siemens is expanding its range of industrial management software for the process industries with the release of its XHQ Operations Intelligence platform. The solution provides near-real-time visibility of operations within a process manufacturing facility, helping enterprises to get more value out of existing investments in plant automation and IT.
XHQ Operations Intelligence is a set of tools that help aggregate, integrate, analyse, and present operational and business data from multiple data sources to improve enterprise performance. These can include process control systems, ERP, MES, production databases, asset management systems, process historians, inventory databases and supply chain management systems. The solution provides a single, coherent view of all critical business and transactional information, enabling a variety of performance-management and decision-support solutions.
With XHQ Operations Intelligence, operations personnel and senior management alike are able to monitor real-time performance against business goals which helps to make more informed decisions about plant performance to positively impact the bottom line.
The toolset synthesises information from multiple sources into views that provide users with the appropriate information in a familiar context.
While key performance indicators (KPIs) such as plant utilisation, the availability of raw materials or product quality enable managers to compare their entire production process with other production lines.
The process can then be optimised and adapted, where required, to achieve business objectives and targets. The metrics generated are updated in real time, making adverse trends and variances known and allowing these deviations to be compensated for prior to any serious impact on the organisation's overall objectives. Any changes in the market can also be taken into consideration, as well as the influencing factors at different production locations.
XHQ Operations Intelligence is a key element of Siemens strategy for digitalisation in the process industries along with the Simatic PCS 7 process control system and the Comos lifecycle engineering software.
