See Everything

By John Petze, President and CEO of Tridium, Inc.

With over 20 years’ experience in the automation industry, and having served in a variety of senior technical and management positions, John Petze, President and CEO of Tridium, Inc. knows a thing or two about cutting operational costs and fine-tuning your business operations. But speaking with Petze, it seems before you can launch into improving or changing the way you manage your operating systems you first need the ability to see exactly what’s going on where and, importantly, how those elements interrelate to each other.

As Petze explains, it’s crucial to have a 360-degree view of your operations and processes: “We think this is very important and is something our customers are bearing out. A company has people costs, operations costs as well as the cost of any product, but management often doesn’t have anywhere near the kind of visibility into its operational costs as it does people costs. We see that the more progressive companies are now pursuing solutions to provide them with that all-round visibility.” He points out, however, that while that 360-degree view of the inputs and outputs of your business is important, it will be of little use if it’s three months old. “A key point to get across is the need for real-time,” says Petze. “By taking a real-time 360-degree view, the people we talk to have achieved results that are causing others to take notice, with dramatic cost savings as well as better response to problems, customer and operational issues, all of which are providing a real competitive advantage.”

Of course, achieving that business intelligence is only the first step. As Petze explains, connecting up the separate elements of your business is vital to understanding how you are going to derive real business value. “The key isn’t to look at the equipment system or device itself, but to look at the business functions and then map them to the systems they affect.” To illustrate the point, he cites the example of a major retailer. “Some in the company were seeking to manage energy costs while others were looking for ways that store managers could adapt to changing schedules relating to holidays, special sales, etc. Those determining the hours of operation do so according to what’s going on with the cash registers, but there is often little understanding of how these schedules impact on the operating systems. For instance, if you want the store to be a comfortable temperature for an early opening, what time does the air conditioning need to go on? Will you face an electrical consumption charge for getting your store cool by 8am and do you know about it? It’s having that knowledge that’s key and that’s the idea behind having a map of business functions across these assets.” That’s exactly what Tridium helps its customers to do – connecting up business assets, devices and systems, to enable them to map them to how they run their operations.

And how do they do that? Through highly technology orientated system integrators who blend an experience base of IP and information systems, control automation, energy management etc., says Petze. “They are the frontline in helping those customers create a scope, a value proposition, to estimate the ROI and to understand how that will positively affect their business.” The company also provides educational materials and sales training to assist its channel partners in deciding how to approach different types of market segments and to demonstrate how managing the way devices operate can affect their business. This, as Petze explains, is essential, because what matters for a large box retailer or convenience store may be very different from the needs of a university or a municipal school district. “Part of the sales process is to come to the customer with a laundry list of options that have been proven in other types of applications. We can let the customer know what problems similar companies have typically faced and the solutions that have worked for them.”

What’s interesting about the concept described by Petze is that while it addresses the eternal business goals of controlling costs and maximizing efficiency, the cut off points for those goals are pretty hazy. “Virtually every project we start begins with some type of initial ROI projection,” says Petze, “the scope being, for example, to be able to communicate and manage particular systems. But what we typically see is that within the first phase of that system being operational, the customer comes back to us excited and full of new ideas, because for the first time they actually know what’s going on in their organization. The old adage ‘you can’t control what you can’t monitor’ really rings true for business owners when it comes to getting real time data from the assets that support their operations.”

A recent project between Tridium and a convergence retailer provides a good example of how having that information can extend into all corners of the enterprise. “When they began to learn what was going on it generated a great deal of excitement throughout the company. As a result, someone responsible for managing the grease traps in the kitchen realized that all the traps they had been buying for the last two years were equipped with communication ports. They saw that if these were connected to enable a real time feed, it would be possible to check on the status of the grease traps and to better schedule maintenance. When you’re talking about an organisation that has many different functions – from fuel dispensing to kitchen operations to inventory associated with food and dry goods on the shelves – you really have to probe into all the different vertical problems they have.”

Another example Petze cites involves improving the efficiency of gas pump maintenance. As there are microprocessors in gas pumps, they can be networked back to a service bureau. “That was one of the definable ROIs with the convergence retailer, because they knew what it cost them to have pumps down. By networking them it would enable them to have immediate alarming and to dispatch service staff without involving store personnel. Those are savings they can quantify.”

What really must be generating excitement and interest in this software is the seemingly endless possibilities it raises for future improvement, opening the doors on problem solving beyond what a company might currently be able to see. “Absolutely,” agrees Petze, “but of course the world isn’t that forgiving so you have to be able to help the customer see where they are going to get a quantifiable ROI. We find that, increasingly, facility operators will initiate these projects with an understanding that a real-time 360-degree view of their business is valuable and they can justify the initial programs through addressing those things they know to be a problem. But it is a long value cycle, the ability to continually improve operations, identify problems and lower costs. Essentially, it’s a tool for continuous improvement.”

The software inevitably has potential in any company employing operating systems and devices, but there has been most investment in real estate, where there is a long history of using systems to control heating, cooling and alarming. In that sector, the trend is now to unify the information so fewer people are responsible for more are and more systems. “They look at this technology solution as a way to unify and simplify the presentation of the information, explains Petze, “so that someone who isn’t deeply trained in each individual system can easily glean the information that’s valuable and know where the operational problems lie.”

The software clearly has visible benefits, but what’s driving companies across the different market segments to implement this technology? According to Petze, this is partly driven by the reality that companies today to have many different equipment and control systems from a variety of manufacturers. Managing and accessing information across this diversity of systems and equipment can present a real challenge. He cites three common reasons behind this diversity of systems and equipment: “Businesses are often the result of acquisitions, with each of the component companies having bought their devices from different manufacturers. Secondly, municipal districts and public schools are forced to buy lots of different stock due to the public bid process. This creates a real management issue for them in the long term. Lastly, when it comes to newer organizations such as convergence retailers, many different systems are simply a necessity to run that type of facility.” Petze concludes the discussion by raising an issue of growing importance to businesses across all sectors. “There is an underlying need to demonstrate that you are in control and have a secure, controlled environment. That’s more difficult to quantity in dollars but is certainly something we are seeing as a growing priority for our customers right now.”

Whatever the individual assets of your business, the problems you view as a priority and the goals you have set, unless you truly know every nook and cranny of your organization you will miss the doubtless potential that exists for improvement.