It’s easy to become overloaded with raw data but still not have the information that you need to make the decisions that will improve your plant or enterprise. Rather than simply collecting and viewing historical information, you need to gather real-time data from the many sources within your plant, combine and analyze it, and turn it into useful information, personalized for individual users – or, in other words, your own Digital Cockpit, which is what GE calls its own Plant Intelligence portals.

An information portal from GE Fanuc aggregates and disseminates data from multiple disparate back-end sources and securely delivers personalized views to authorized users with browsers or internet-enabled devices. By viewing relevant graphical data in real time, you are empowered to make rapid, proactive, and informed decisions.

These personalized portals can deliver immediate, actionable intelligence to you, your employees, suppliers, and customers. Customized intelligence can serve your enterprise from an operator to maintenance manager to manufacturing vice president to CEO. Statistical control charts allow you to place the same level of analysis typically found in plant floor systems on data collected from virtually any data source.

Using web-enabled technology, portals have delivered tremendous value and rapid ROI throughout GE and to our customers around the world. This technology – our Digital Cockpits – has become critical. As Jeff Immelt, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer of GE, explains:

Digitization has made GE faster and allows us to constantly measure what we do. Metrics – especially those 10 to 15 critical measurements that leaders need to run their businesses – are now online, real-time and shared by all. … Daily and weekly – rather than monthly or quarterly – our business leaders are making course corrections to their businesses, saving time and money while better serving our customers.

Some analysts and leading companies believe that in two to three years, businesses that are not making daily decisions based on real-time data will struggle to survive. By implementing your own Digital Cockpit now, you can gain a competitive edge and acquire the data to make a difference for your customers and business.