In recent years, the industries of both operational technology and information technology have begun to converge into a single entity. This fusion came as a result of the new demands that the modern market produced, namely, increased efficiency and profitability.
This poses a problem for Philippines businesses, which more often than not still rely on brick-and-mortar practices. In fact, the World Economic Forum ranks the Philippines a low 76th out of 143 countries in terms of ICT readiness. To give context, our ASEAN neighbor Malaysia ranks at a much higher 32. ICT stands for Information Communications Technologies.
But how will the Philippines adapt to these growing challenges? GE proposed Digital Transformation.
What is digital transformation? Simply put, it involves the use of cloud technologies to automate industry tasks. It unifies control over various parts of a certain business, and hands it to operations for centralized control.
To emphasize the importance of digital transformation, even just 1 percent of improvement in efficiency equaled 276 billion USD in 15 years over five different industries.
Extending its portfolio from domain expertise in manufacturing and electronics to software development, GE spearheads the digital transformation wave with programs like Predix for the Industrial Internet. Specifically, its Asset Performance Management software takes data from machines to identify possible damage to it, in the future. This obviously eliminates the constant need for routine checkups, repairs and replacements, as operations can now cut costs by being able to predict upcoming damages.
“The software can revolutionize how power plants work, fine-tuning gas turbines and wind turbines,” described Alvin Ng, GE Digital’s General Manager in ASEAN. “Companies who install advanced sensor technology, and the analysis apps and software available today, will better predict the performance of their machinery to reduce downtime, and maximize efficiencies, productivity, environmental gains and major cost savings.”
“The ‘Industrial Internet of Things’ is the next frontier for the country, spurring greater demand for flexible operating systems that optimize how machines connect and perform with one another. And its possibilities, for Philippine businesses and industrial operations, are game changing,” concludes Ng.