General Electric bets big on digital

While the industrial ecosystem lags the productivity gains seen in the consumer economy as a result of digital disruption, General Electric (GE) is betting its future on digital industrial transformation and the powerful gains that will emerge from fully leveraging what the Internet of Things (IoT) has to offer.

The consumer disruption as a result of unprecedented digital technology growth, as seen with Uber, AirBNB and Apple’s application economy, had not transitioned into the industrial environment, said GE Transportation chief digital officer and digital solutions president Seth Bodnar.

“On the consumer side, we see some of the benefits, some of the disruption that digital capabilities can bring. However, we have not seen these benefits in the industrial era yet,” he told delegates attending the Africa Rail conference, being held from June 13 to 14, in Sandton.

The technology is in place but it is disconnected, and with some parts of the ecosystem having not yet been optimised or fully leveraged, the industrial sector is not yet seeing the full productivity gains technology could make possible.

However, Bodnar assured that change was coming, pointing to the rise of connected gas turbines, locomotives, lightbulbs, cars and jet engines, besides many others, as a result of IoT.

“The number of assets that can be connected and can be harmonised is massive. This is a tremendous opportunity for us,” he said.

“The reason we are betting so heavily, the reason why we are determined to become the world’s premier digital industrial company is because there is massive power in this domain.”

With this as a base, GE is focusing on three pillars to drive the future digital vision of GE, including “GE for GE” where the company leveraged digital technology to improve the productivity and efficiencies of its own operations.

The second and third pillars – “GE for the Customer” and “GE for the World” – will see GE transfer its digital transformation capabilities to its clients and the rest of the world to create a digital ecosystem leveraging the power of technology having guided industrial companies through this “complex technology and business transition”.

This will be done through Predix, GE’s cloud-based operating system for the Industrial Internet that was purpose-built for the digital industrial era and which captures and analyses the “unique volume, velocity and variety of machine data in a secure, industrial-strength cloud environment”.

“We want to create an ecosystem of industrial users leveraging digital capabilities to drive operational efficiencies,” Bodnar said.