The Importance of Performance Management in Sustainability — an IoT Use Case

Performance management and IoT go hand in hand, but how do they relate to sustainability? How can performance management impact an organization’s sustainability initiatives in a positive way, and increase energy efficiency?

Well, to begin, performance management addresses issues in real-time. This enables equipment makers to ensure that their equipment is reliable, increases customer satisfaction and retention, and lowers overall product support and ongoing maintenance costs. By using IoT devices and sensors to monitor and analyze equipment performance, businesses can make informed decisions about their operations and reduce waste, leading to a more sustainable future. One key metric that can be used for this purpose is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

When machines talk, they share insights that matter. Let’s explore some of those insights and the key benefits that arise when deploying a performance management use case with sustainability in mind:

1. Improved Equipment Performance

IoT devices and sensors can be used to monitor equipment performance and provide data-driven insights into equipment utilization, efficiency, and reliability. This information can then be used to inform decisions around equipment maintenance, reducing the likelihood of equipment failure and unplanned downtime. As a result, with real-time insights into equipment performance and the ability to identify areas where improvements can be made, organizations are enabled to improve equipment performance.

2. Increased Energy Efficiency

Performance management also increases energy efficiency by providing real-time data on equipment performance, energy consumption, and energy utilization. Organizations can and should use this information to identify areas where energy can be saved and optimized equipment settings to reduce energy consumption. By reducing energy consumption, organizations are taking a sustainable path, being able to reduce their carbon footprint and positively impact the environment.

3. Improved Transparency and Accountability

OEE is a critical metric for instilling more transparency and accountability in operations. OEE provides a comprehensive view of equipment performance and allows businesses to understand the impact of their operations on the environment. By measuring and tracking OEE, businesses can make informed decisions about their operations, improve performance, and increase energy efficiency. This leads to a more sustainable future, as businesses can make data-driven decisions that positively impact the environment and reduce carbon footprint.

4. Improved Sustainability and Environmental Performance

Performance management is a critical use case for improving sustainability and environmental performance. By using OEE to measure and track performance, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and accountability, leading to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future. By providing real-time data and insights into equipment performance, organizations can identify areas where they can optimize processes, reduce waste, and improve efficiency, all of which drastically improves decision-making, tailoring the process to be more sustainability conscious, taking the triple bottom line into consideration.

GeicoTaikisha turned to Software AG to help them with improving their operations, boost productivity, and, as a result, help them achieve their sustainability initiatives. They are the world’s first company to offer a zero environmental impact paint shop, reducing consumption by 70% — and reaching their sustainability goals three years ahead of schedule. Equipment malfunctions are identified immediately thanks to remote monitoring and performance management, allowing Geico to address issues in real-time, improving overall plant safety and efficiency.

We were looking for a powerful IoT platform that would be simple to deploy and offer fast, added-value services targeting the end-customers need to boost equipment efficiency, shorten delivery times, slash downtime, improve equipment maintenance, and meet mass-customization — and sustainability goals.

Abdelrahman Khalil, Automation Integrator, Geico

In Summary

Performance management has the power to impact our future, which, at the end of the day, depends on how organizations use the insights that they discover. By using OEE to measure and track performance, businesses can demonstrate their commitment to sustainability and accountability, leading to a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future. The insights are there, it’s now up to individual organizations to act. Performance management, just like IoT, is the enabler, enabling organizations to act sustainably and act responsibly.

Contact us to discuss how you can leverage IoT and performance management for your sustainability initiatives.