Schneider Electric Makes Industry Simpler and More Profitable with EcoStruxure for Industry

HANNOVER, Germany, April 24, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, today announced a significant step forward in its ability to help its industrial customers remove complexity, leverage open technology and experience new levels of value and efficiency with the introduction of EcoStruxure^™ for Industry. The IIoT-enabled, open and interoperable system architecture for plants and machines leverages the company's next-generation System Platform 2017, powered by Wonderware^™, delivering a new standard for operational excellence for industrial organizations. System Platform 2017 offers significant new capabilities for developers and users of the company's industry leading system platform, which is today running in 100,000+ sites worldwide and includes an ecosystem of 4,000 system integrators and implementation partners and 160,000 developers.

EcoStruxure for Industry, announced by the company today from Hannover Messe, is the result of the company's decade's long industry leadership and a multi-billion dollar investment in R&D and acquisitions over the past three years. The architecture helps its customers unlock the potential of digitization and IIoT to accelerate open, standards-based development and offer industrial customers a more flexible alternative to today's model, where multiple and disparate systems within a process often require complex and significant engineering to leverage the IIoT opportunity.

Bringing Innovation at Every Level
With a unique technology stack including industry-leading connected products like the Altivar Process drive, edge control with the M580 ePAC integrated controller and applications, analytics and services with System Platform 2017, powered by Wonderware, EcoStruxure for Industry is the application of the company's EcoStruxure architecture for industrial customers, bringing together the industry's broadest portfolio of energy, automation and software offers into completed, packaged solutions for customers. It enables industry customers to make the most of new opportunities created by digitization, and provides an integrated framework for industrial customers to tackle the increasing complexity of industrial operations, to optimize assets and to increase the speed of adapting to changing business conditions.

"EcoStruxure for Industry is the next evolution in our long track record of delivering new and increasing value to our customers and transforming the industrial world with technology," said Peter Herweck, Executive Committee member and EVP, Industry Business, Schneider Electric. "We have always focused on the efficiency of industrial operations through open and interoperable technology and hardware agnostic software. Industrial users can now take advantage of these new technologies and smartly digitize their businesses for increased end to end operational efficiency leading to increased profitability."

At the core of EcoStruxure for Industry is its System Platform 2017, powered by Wonderware, a responsive, scalable and open software stack for developers of industrial applications. It provides new capabilities for building new and/or customized applications to optimize industrial processes and assets and to leverage applications developed by third party software partners and developers as well as Schneider Electric. With an open development environment and an interoperable interface, users can gain wider visibility into industrial operations to deliver enhanced business value around safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability and connectivity.

"Despite all the new technology and capabilities available, many industrial operations are still performing sub-optimally when it comes to the potential business value they can generate," said Craig Resnick, Vice President, ARC Advisory Group. "Optimizing business value in industrial operations requires scalable, open solutions that help users leverage every industrial asset. An open approach could ultimately enable industry to move from monitoring business value to actually enhancing and controlling it."

Operational Efficiency in Hybrid and Continuous Process
As a full line automation company covering machinery, discrete, hybrid and process with the most robust offering bringing together automation and power, Schneider Electric sees a specific opportunity to address the challenges unique to hybrid and continuous customers. In the past, data from continuous processes was difficult to extract, integrate and analyze. With EcoStruxure for Industry, Schneider Electric can connect edge and cloud computing to allow data analytics to drive smarter processes in continuous assets and facilities. The company has leveraged its strength in this space to work closely with hybrid process operators. Customers in process and hybrid processes enjoy unmatched end-to-end operational efficiency with Schneider Electric's IIoT-enabled, future-proof solutions that foster open innovation and enable more dynamic control for better business results.

Co-Development of Open IIOT
The announcement of EcoStruxure for Industry comes on the same day as an announcement of a major advancement in its strategic collaboration with Microsoft Corp. that significantly enhances the value the companies can offer businesses and organizations across multiple industries. Customers can now gain access to multiple cloud-based applications from Schneider's EcoStruxure architecture that utilize the full capabilities of the Azure cloud platform, as well as next-generation capabilities like mixed reality to bring new levels of decision making capabilities, productivity and efficiency.

Other partnerships being highlighted at Hannover Messe include a joint development demo and collaboration on industrial internet security and interoperability with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC), where Schneider Electric has been a member since 2015. Schneider is also one of the founding members of ODVA and will be partnering with them at their booth at Hannover to advance open, interoperable information and communication technologies in industrial automation.

For more information on EcoStruxure for Industry, please visit the company's Hannover Messe booth, Hall 11, C58 or http://www.schneider-electric.com/b2b/en/campaign/innovation/industries.jsp. For more information on System Platform 2017, please visit https://www.wonderware.com/hmi-scada/system-platform/.

EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric's open, interoperable, IoT-enabled system architecture delivering enhanced value around safety, reliability, efficiency, sustainability, and connectivity for our customers. EcoStruxure leverages technologies in IoT, mobility, sensing, cloud, analytics, and cybersecurity to deliver Innovation at Every Level including Connected Products, Edge Control, and Apps, Analytics & Services. EcoStruxure has been deployed in 450,000+ installations, with the support of 9,000 system integrators, connecting over 1 billion devices. For more information about EcoStruxure, please read our EcoStruxure brochure.

About Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is the global specialist in energy management and automation. With revenues of $26 billion US dollars (25 billion euros) in FY2016, our 160,000+ employees serve customers in over 100 countries, helping them to manage their energy and process in ways that are safe, reliable, efficient and sustainable. From the simplest of switches to complex operational systems, our technology, software and services improve the way our customers manage and automate their operations. Our connected technologies reshape industries, transform cities and enrich lives. At Schneider Electric, we call this Life Is On.

www.schneider-electric.us 

SOURCE Schneider Electric

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