Rockwell Automation, Inc. (NYSE: ROK), the world’s largest company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, is charging forward on its sustainability efforts for both itself as a company and for customers by adopting a digital transformation to net zero approach. Through data analysis management, Rockwell Automation is supporting customers to get certified by energy management standards and connect them to the blueprint of global sustainability.
In Taiwan, the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) announced the “Road Map of Sustainable Development for Taiwan’s listed Companies” in March, requiring Taiwan’s listed companies with paid-in capital of at least NT$10 billion (US$352.58 million) or those in the steel and cement sectors to disclose their carbon emissions.
Manufacturing companies in Taiwan are struggling to fulfill the abovementioned government’s requirements, as quantifying energy consumption through a digital management can be a complex process. “Greenhouse gas inventory is the very first step towards energy saving and carbon reduction,” said Ting-Zhang Chang, smart manufacturing application consultant, Rockwell Automation Taiwan. “However, we noticed that many Taiwan manufacturers are facing challenges in finding the root of excessive energy consumption, as many of them have only implemented energy-saving solutions without any comprehensive plans.”
Chang added, “what is most concerning is that many manufactures skip the continuous monitoring just to bring down the costs, which may cause difficulties in result evaluation. At Rockwell, we help customers adopt energy management systems (EMS) with big data analysis. The EMS is meant to effectively monitor greenhouse gas inventory and emissions, therefore, the customers are able to achieve their corporate objectives for carbon reduction.”
The Rockwell Automation EMS is a flexible and easily scalable management platform that helps factories to manage the energy consumption of all machines in one place and present the analysis results through visualized data charts. The EMS can be divided across four stages, starting with data collection. The system can support various communication protocols, integrate internet of things (IoT) device data, set up sensors to automatically record the energy consumption data of devices, and present EMS in business intelligence statistical charts by identifying energy consumption patterns and sources. It is also equipped with an energy data abnormality detection mechanism, which enables the industry to conduct crisis management in a timely manner.
At the same time, when setting priority energy-saving targets, an energy management baseline should be established to objectively verify the energy-saving measures in order to effectively match the enterprise’s budget and demand for the best strategy to reduce energy consumption. In addition, the EMS not only supports different stages of energy data application, but also possesses the flexibility to expand and apply across IoT platforms. This way, it can integrate both vertically and horizontally from the bottom controller for automation to manufacturing execution system (MES), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and building management system to meet corporate demand for expansion in the future.
In its 2021 Sustainability Report, Rockwell Automation disclosed its commitment to sustainability through industrial energy management software, water resource smart applications, and waste management and recycling solutions, working with a wide range of industries and customers. In the report, Blake Moret, CEO, Rockwell Automation, said, “We’re transforming our company to meet the biggest industrial challenges of today and tomorrow, and we’re doing so from a position of unrivaled experience and credibility. For more than 100 years, we’ve improved the efficiency of industrial processes. To accelerate our impact, we’ve added a new role — Vice President of Sustainability — to scale up a team dedicated to reducing our own carbon footprint and developing new solutions to help our customers do the same.”
Rockwell Automation not only achieves its own sustainability goals, but also assists customers in digital transformation and to effectively formulate goals and plans for carbon footprint reduction. With the quantification of the EMS, Rockwell Automation can help to complete carbon inventory and disclosure, achieve the goal of net zero, and bring: Safety, Energy, Environment and Efficiency (SEEE) value to our customers, creating a new era of green sustainability in the future.
