“SMEs to upscale to deploy Connected Technologies by Honeywell”: Ashish M. Gaikwad, Honeywell

In a one on one with PC Quest, Ashish M. Gaikwad, Managing Director, Honeywell Automation India Limited and Country Leader, Honeywell Process Solutions talks about the Honeywell Connected Plant solutions in the Indian scenario.

Ashish M. Gaikwad, Managing Director, Honeywell Automation India Limited

What are the solutions under the recently launched Honeywell Connected Plant (HCP) portfolio?

We have introduced our suite of solutions under the Honeywell Connected Plant (HCP) to promote digitization in industries in support of the government’s Digital India effort. HCP combines our industrial expertise, software and cloud technologies to make our customers’ operations more reliable, profitable and secure than ever before.

Some of the solutions include the Industrial Cyber Security Risk Manager, a solution that provides a single view for operations, IT and leadership teams to monitor, measure and manage cyber security across the enterprise. The Secure Media Exchange (SMX) gives operators unprecedented control and visibility into the secure use of USB and removable storage by personnel and contractors alike, reducing cyber risk to process control networks globally.

A documentation and change management software that helps customers’ industrial control system integrity, Honeywell Trace replaces paper-based records and spreadsheets with an automated solution. This helps minimize errors due to changes in configurations, improve worker productivity, and simplify automation asset management by providing a single integrated view of complex system interactions.

The expanded Uniformance Suite software provides real-time digital intelligence through advanced process and event data collection, asset-centric analytics and powerful visualization technology, turning plant data into actionable information to enable smart operations.

HCP applications leverage the IIoT to tap Honeywell's process knowledge, design expertise and understanding of catalysis with next-generation software platforms from Honeywell Process Solutions. The software-based service enables refiners and petrochemical and gas processing plants to improve their performance.

What are the benefits that the HCP portfolio will bring to the industry?

For the oil industry it is very important to operate all the time for making money. We know that, in refineries there are plant shutdowns every 2 or 3 years for making general arrangements to make sure everything is cleaned. In that case, especially the industry has to adopt world-class technologies that improve safety, reliability, and efficiency in an increasingly competitive global environment. Our HCP proposition is uniquely positioned to achieve this industrial evolution.

How critical is security from the HCP industrial IoT standpoint and what is Honeywell’s proposition in the security context?

We are simultaneously working on the security aspects that are necessary for the industrial networks. Honeywell in the last couple of years have invested into large labs which we call the cyber security facilities even while we embraced the whole Industrial IOT. This basically is under passing the connectivity between sensors, devices, equipments and bringing all into the cloud. Right now our main focus is cyber security in the context of industrial networks and we call it as industrial cyber security. We have already launched some products which have become very popular.

One of our products that is being used in the industrial context is called the risk manager. Risk manager is continuously looking at everything that is connected to the industrial network. It gives a dashboard which keeps telling you the possible threat can happen and actions that can be taken by the plant to avoid the cyber attacks.

The device ‘risk manager’ is going to work forever because the hackers are working continuously on wherever they see a door cracking open and they can enter.

Will the Nextnine acquisition help in bolstering this security portfolio for Honeywell?

We acquired Nextnine, a privately held provider of security management solutions and technologies for industrial cyber security. The addition of Nextnine’s industry-leading security solutions and secure remote service capabilities will enhance our existing range of innovative cyber security technologies and significantly increase HCP’s cyber security customer base.

Nextnine’s flagship technology, ICS Shield, protects industrial sites from cyber security attacks and enables remote monitoring of assets. It complements Honeywell’s extensive cyber security portfolio with a solution that is used at more than 6,200 sites globally across the oil and gas, utility, chemical, mining and manufacturing sectors.

Is there any plan to get these cyber security facilities soon in India?

We try to bring the world to the people rather than bringing people to the world. We have a concept in Honeywell that place and the physical location do not matter at all.In fact some of the customers in India are already getting services from these centers without realizing that it is being done by somebody else. But yes, the facility will be available in India soon for our Indian customers too.

Can you elaborate on the ArmGuard system for HCP and what exactly it plans to achieve?

The ARMGuard system is a remote monitoring service that helps natural gas processors manage the adsorbents that are used to remove water from natural gas. system uses existing instrumentation to help customers optimize their adsorption cycles, reduce energy consumption, operate under variable feed conditions, and reduce costs due to unscheduled shutdowns.

The ARMGuard system monitors the performance of our adsorbents to advise how the dehydration process can be kept running efficiently and reliably. The more effectively you can manage your adsorption system, the more effectively you can keep the unit on-stream and operating profitability.

How many HCP customers are here currently in India? Do you see any potential in SME customers to adopt HCP solutions?

One of our customers which is in the public domain is Reliance. The others too are large enterprises though we cannot name them because of confidentiality. In India we have already conducted the event to launch this HCP solution. So we believe that we will get this concept from here onwards across the industry.

SMEs too will be needing these solutions, especially as they are critical parts of the supply chain for these oil & gas as well as manufacturing industries. However, these individual small factories may not have enough capital to afford these solutions. As we leverage the economics of this scheme, we will bring some of the services which are now exclusively available for bigger customers by dividing the multiple SMEs in a particular area. There has to be an ecosystem where you can accommodate different types and sizes partners. And yes, Sentient can be such an ecosystem.

‘Sentient’ is a cloud based platform where we can accommodate and also invite the OEM Partners. About 15 to 20 OEMs we are already partnered with there, though most of them are global.

What are the initiatives taken by Honeywell for saving natural resources?

Honeywell is working in the area of bio-fuels which could be in large amount. There is significant work that is being done in that technology, but one of our purposes of using the connected plant and therefore the power of connected is also to reduce large amount of wastage that happens in the natural resources. If you are able to reduce the wastage and use it far more efficiently, than really we will increase the length of the natural resources availability on the planet.