By aligning IT and OT around contextualized data, Element Unify enables smarter, digitally-enabled operations for Industrial IoT
Element today announced a new software solution called Element Unify, which aligns IT and operational technology (OT) around contextualized Industrial IoT data, delivering key enterprise integration and governance capabilities to industrials for the first time. This provides them with rich insight, enabling smarter, more efficient operations. By integrating previously siloed and critical time-series metadata generated by sensors across industrial operations with established IT systems, such as Enterprise Asset Management, IT and OT teams can now easily work together using a holistic metadata system of record across their entire Industrial IoT environment.
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“We built Element Unify specifically for the industrial sector, to solve the unique IT/OT data management problem that these enterprises have grappled with for decades”
For decades, industrial IT and OT teams have been disconnected, with systems that have been separate and fragmented. This has led to data silos, inconsistent data quality, and poor, enterprise-wide data governance. All of which means that getting a uniform and shared view of the data –– and the critical context it can provide –– is nearly impossible.
Solving this data silo problem isn’t easy or cheap. Industrials spend billions of dollars a year using consultants and spreadsheets. These companies often find that they’re back to square one after only a few months because the data they captured was unable to adapt to real-world changes.
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In fact, according to McKinsey, 95 percent of the data generated in industrial environments is unusable or of very poor quality. This problem is not trivial. For example, while millions of sensors may have been deployed across everything from the valves and control systems on an oil rig, to the automated machinery in manufacturing facilities, the data captured by the sensors is generally raw and nearly unusable as it lacks critical metadata like performance specifications, functional location, and maintenance history. This makes it nearly impossible for teams to predict when a valve might fail, leading to sometimes catastrophic disasters.
Element Unify was specifically designed to address this need and is comprised of four core components:
- Integrate –– allows the easy, friction-free ingestion of metadata from OT & IT systems, spreadsheets and P&ID systems, helping eliminate poor OT data quality.
- Contextualize –– allows users to combine data, making it contextually rich, and out of that single source of truth, compose whatever data model is needed in order to consume raw data via analytical tools.
- Govern –– enables the management of enterprise data semantics, delivering a robust data governance engine that ensures a single source of truth for industrial metadata across the enterprise.
- ElementGraph –– a visual graphical map of the entirety of an Industrial IoT deployment that shows context and interdependencies of systems, and enabling consumption by any data user or system whether on-prem or in the Cloud.
“We built Element Unify specifically for the industrial sector, to solve the unique IT/OT data management problem that these enterprises have grappled with for decades,” said Andy Bane, CEO of Element. “These teams have not had a common framework or data system of record from which to work from, and for too long have sat in their own silos. Because of this, they’re unable to partner, making it impossible for an industrial enterprise to move forward with digital transformation of their operations. With Element Unify, we are unifying IT and OT data and finally bringing relevance and full context to industrial IoT deployments. As a result, we are helping unlock operational efficiencies and facilitating digitally-enabled operations.”
The launch comes five months after Element closed $18 million in Series B financing that was co-led by Activate Capital and Forte Ventures with participation from existing investors. With total funding of $40 million, Element is delivering on its mission to enable industrial companies to achieve cleaner, healthier, safer and more profitable operations through converged IT/OT data.
