BENEFITS OF DIGITALISATION WORLD PULP&PAPER 78 employing advanced process control and modeling methods – some even using artificial intelligence tools – to improve process performance. At the same time, there is a strong need to keep existing mills operational and profitable, so one challenge is to incorporate brownfield operations into the digital environment. To facilitate this effort, Siemens has collaborated with Bentley Systems to integrate Bentley’s reality modeling software into Siemens’ process simulation and leverage laser-scanned point clouds in modeling the existing context of brownfield industrial environments. Another challenge is to define suitable standards and establish them in the industry. While too many individual systems are widely used in the fibre industry for any to be considered a de facto standard for certain tasks, each vendor often has its own version of a given system. This …in any digitalisation project [it is crucial] to look beyond the initial investment and recognise the lifecycle impact of the technologies that are to be introduced. often results in a loss of information despite the potential for seamless lifecycle integration. To fully exploit the benefits of digitalisation, the fibre industry must overcome the information borders between companies and technologies without violating intellectual property rights or production, process, and IT security. This effort will also require a rethinking in some business areas and calls for opportunities for collaboration. What is most important in any digitalisation project is to look beyond the initial investment and recognise the lifecycle impact of the technologies that are to be introduced. For this purpose, companies should define their current state and the targets they wish to achieve through digitalisation. As a first step, plant operators need to look at whether they can provide connectivity of data throughout the plant and what systems need to be upgraded. For example, critical motors will likely already have a monitoring system in place, while motors considered not critical to process performance may lack such a system. Next is the task of creating an integrated data model for plants. While today most plant data are readily available in digital form at each point of the plant lifecycle, data integration across the lifecycle might require additional effort. This step also involves assessing how to bring existing equipment with incomplete or outdated plant data into the digital environment. As mentioned above, advanced tools for data integration and context capture can support plant owners in this phase of digitalisation. Once all the data are integrated into a coherent information architecture, Figure 2. Siemens MindSphere.