Supernova Award Category
The Problem
Recognizing the power of data for optimizing industrial machines and decision making, GE embarked on a journey to digitize operations and optimize its machines and processes. The company needed to adopt cutting-edge technology to stay competitive and manage costs in a rapidly evolving landscape. While multiple options existed to help build applications in the consumer and enterprise space, the existing platforms were not effectively suited to handle the volumes of data generated by industrial machines or the more stringent security and reliability requirements. Furthermore, IoT requires a complex mashup of technologies, from embedded systems and networking, to big data and analytics, to modern mobile apps that run on a variety of devices such as tablets and wearables. GE needed a platform to facilitate the creation of application with a common foundation that addresses the unique needs of industry.
In addition to industry improvements that business improvements, The Predix Developer Community has created inspiring, life saving applications. Examples of these applications span from saving pets/children locked in a hot car; to detecting obstructions on train tracks and changing the engine cadence and engaging the brakes; to monitoring nuclear energy moisture & environmental conditions; and so on.
The Solution
Beyond the innovation being driven externally, GE needed a modern platform to rapidly develop, deploy, and operate Industrial apps. It needed a platform that offers a standardized way to enable complex businesses ranging from Power & Water, Healthcare, Aviation, etc. Due to the diverse range of application needs, the platform needed to be deployable at the edge of the network and in the cloud. Industrial-grade technology and a purpose-built cloud infrastructure to support applications optimized for asset data models and operational workflows was key. The platform also needed to be designed for industrial big data and analytics and equipped with modern development tools for faster innovation. GE invested $1B+ since 2012 to develop Predix, an edge-to-cloud platform. The platform leverages open source, modern technologies, and key partnerships to create a robust ecosystem for developers to build applications faster.
The results
As the world’s first industrial-grade, edge-to-cloud platform, Predix powers the modern digital industrial businesses that drive the global economy. Although Predix was initially built for GE and its customers, they recognized the potential for other companies and developers to leverage it to build their applications. Now, developers across the world can build apps quickly, leverage work elsewhere, reduce sources of error, develop and share best practices, lower risk of cost and time overruns, and future-proof their initial investments.
They are on their way to creating a broad Industrial Internet ecosystem that leads the digitization of the industrial economy.
Metrics
With $1.2B in orders Q1, they’re helping customers drive the outcomes and efficiencies they want with their industrial applications.
Year to date, there are 12,000+ developers on Predix, an ecosystem of partners (like Oracle, Accenture, others) to drive exponential growth, and customer proof points of new digital solutions to confirm customer value.
The Technology
Predix
Disruptive Factor
Please see presentation attached - http://www.ge.com/sites/default/files/ge_webcast_presentation_06232016_1...
They’ve paired domain expertise with cutting-edge technology to deliver the first and only Industrial Internet platform. The real change that is transforming industry is around the data and analytic insights that drive industrial productivity and efficiency gains and unleash new business models and value chains. In this area, GE Digital is positioned to lead based on their comprehensive strategy that includes an edge-to-cloud platform built for industry, applications, and ecosystems. In leading the Industrial Internet, GE has become the world’s premier digital industrial company, and transformed its businesses by building and deploying Predix and opening the platform to non-GE assets. Their experience as an OEM of industrial equipment enables them to uniquely understand the use cases of the software they develop. It is actively deployed in their 400+ factories and seeing the benefits first hand in increased productivity and profitability. Furthermore, their machine learning algorithms are purpose-built, unique to the individual machine asset and based on statistics and physics-based modeling. The result is changing the status quo for industrial businesses and other companies eager to turn volumes of data into actionable insights.
Shining Moment
- Frost & Sullivan: 2015 Global Frost & Sullivan Growth Excellence Award for Application Convergence
- Gartner: Magic Quadrant Leader, 2015 for Advanced distribution management systems (ADMS) in Energy Digital; "Transforming the vision of algorithm-based smart machine production strategies"
- Business Wire: GE Sets Guinness World Records(TM) Title for Most Efficient Power Plant
- CIMI: "Predix is how the IoT should have been visualized all along."