Service and equipment are cornerstones of latest business
Amazon Web Services (AWS) recently introduced a division that focuses on predictive maintenance for industrial companies.
Placed under its "Energy" umbrella, the AWS Equipment Health & Performance Optimization facet is designed to help oil and gas operators reduce operational downtime by delivering real-time visibility to and insights on equipment health and monitoring. This, AWS says, will "enable prediction of equipment failures days or weeks ahead, while also optimizing equipment to ensure optimal performance." AWS, as a whole, essentially cover all of Amazon's cloud services.
For those of us familiar with predictive maintenance, this feels like Amazon impeding on well-established markets. The language behind AWS' new division reflects the goals of predictive and preventative maintenance that many companies have been developing in-house for decades, with an emphasis on energy equipment:
"Upstream and midstream energy production assets are comprised of millions of pieces of equipment that support the development and production of fuel sources," an AWS press release reads. "These critical assets often experience downtime and deferred production due to equipment failures. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, predictive maintenance saves 8% to 12% over preventative maintenance costs and upwards of 40% over reactive maintenance costs."
It's also worth noting Amazon's open commitment to the oil and gas industry without mention of environmental factors. The company postures itself as a figurehead of the fight against climate change.
The Equipment Health & Performance Optimization solution is also said to be an "end-to-end, field-to-cloud solution that integrates real-time performance data with maintenance system data," which is to be expected given Amazon's place in the tech world. According to the company, the focus on cloud integration and IoT solutions is meant to "ensure efficient equipment maintenance applications and enable operators to transition from costly reactive or time-based maintenance schedules to maintenance based directly on the health of the asset." This is not a new priority for well-seasoned maintenance operations—who could elect to use AWS' new services if they choose, but have likely developed their own maintenance protocols through tried-and-true methods over the years.
Lastly, AWS technology partners for the Equipment Health & Performance Optimization solution include Shoreline IoT and Seeq, and deployment partners include AWS Professional Services and Softserve.