Martin Otterson, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at OSIsoft, said the results of the collaboration between the two companies have been impressive so far. “By leveraging Microsoft Go-To-Market Services, OSIsoft has been able to create new subscription-based revenue streams and has achieved 12 joint wins with prominent customers including Barrick Gold, Deschutes Brewery, Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems, MPWiK S.A. (Wroclaw, Poland) and Toyota Motors Europe,” Otterson said.
OSIsoft, which delivers the PI System, the industry standard in enterprise infrastructure, for management of real-time data and events, has collaborated with Microsoft on a variety of co-sell activities. They have hosted joint webinars for prospective customers, as well as live events in Detroit, Michigan, in San Leandro, California for OSIsoft’s sponsored events and OSIsoft User Conference, and in Germany at Hanover Messe, the world's largest industrial technology trade fair.
“The speed of customer acquisition goes up tremendously because Microsoft is bringing the right technical and customer qualified leads together to the sales process,” said Acharyya, who also stressed that the co-sell relationship with Microsoft was about more than the number of leads they receive. “It’s important to understand that the co-sell team has a tremendous quality of people. It’s not just the headcount, but the skills, knowledge and connections of people we can work together with,” he said. “Also, a lot of people think that the co-sell process is a one-stop thing. It’s not like you send me the lead and I’ll see you in six months. There’s actually more of a joint strategy and execution structure to this process.”
Acharyya said that OSIsoft has had a particularly close relationship with Microsoft Corporate Vice President Joseph Sirosh and his team. The two teams worked together to create the RCIP, receiving direct input from Caglayan Arkan and his team. Arkan is the General Manager of Worldwide Manufacturing and Resources at Microsoft as well as the Executive Sponsor for the OSIsoft relationship.
RCIP, a comprehensive collaboration between OSIsoft and Microsoft, was designed to reduce the burden of data preparation by adding contextualization and insights from OSIsoft’s PI System to support Industry 4.0 initiatives related to using IoT and cloud computing solutions in Manufacturing & Resources, Power & Utilities, Oil & Gas, Food & Beverage, Discrete Manufacturing, and Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG). Under RCIP, OSIsoft and Microsoft collaborate with customers to develop processes to seamlessly connect real-time data from operations using OSIsoft’s PI System with advanced analytics like Cortana Intelligence, Azure IoT and business applications, thereby bridging the OT and IT gap and paving the way for digital transformation. A key element of RCIP is the PI Integrator for Microsoft Azure that automatically cleans, prepares and transmits PI System data, context and insights to the Microsoft Cloud Platform, which facilitates digital leadership for OSIsoft and Microsoft customers.
This year, OSIsoft and Microsoft demonstrated significant success with RCIP at Hanover Messe, the world's largest industrial technology trade fair, showcasing several new prominent customers in the program, including Barrick Gold, Deschutes Brewery, Henkel, MPWiK (Poland Water) and Toyota Motor Europe.
Companies have joined RCIP for different reasons. Toyota Motor Europe joined RCIP to leverage the advanced analytics of the Microsoft Cortana Intelligence Suite for energy management and energy forecasting in their production facilities. Meanwhile, Barrick Gold is joining RCIP to develop analytical models for predictive maintenance for their trucks at their Cortez mining site in Nevada, adding the PI Integrator for Microsoft Azure to its existing PI System infrastructure as part of their Common Data Platform initiative.
“We like the agile approach of OSIsoft and Microsoft’s Red Carpet Incubation Program for rapid operationalization of advanced analytics, helping us to harness the potential of digital technology and unlock value across Barrick’s business," said Ed Humphries, Barrick’s Head of Digital Transformation.
Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Ltd. (MHPS) also announced that they would participate in the RCIP program at Hanover Messe. “Microsoft is proud of its continued collaboration with OSIsoft to support our customers seeking greater value from their data,” Sirosh said. “With RCIP, OSIsoft and Microsoft are helping Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems bridge the OT-IT gap and help their power industry customers get valuable insights from the PI System and Microsoft Cortana Intelligence.”
Deschutes Brewery, an early RCIP participant, leverages OSIsoft and Microsoft technologies to increase brewing process efficiency across its beer portfolio. Deschutes employed the PI System to better understand its brewing process and managed to postpone an $8 million capital upgrade by making its current facilities more efficient. Through participating in the RCIP program, Deschutes anticipates it can save an average of 48 hours for every batch of beer across eight to ten brands. “By integrating the OSIsoft PI System with Microsoft Cortana Intelligence, we’ve identified opportunities for process efficiency all the way down the production line," says Brian Faivre, Brewmaster at Deschutes Brewery. “This may be the greatest project I’ve ever been involved with in my brewing career.”
With momentum developing around RCIP and other co-sell activities, Acharyya said they are ready to grow their efforts. “Now that we have validated the effectiveness of RCIP for rapid operationalization of IoT Analytics; we’re ready to expand into new geographic regions as well as other industry verticals.”
Arkan said the increasing collaboration with OSIsoft has been a welcome development. “It’s a pleasure being a longtime collaborator with OSIsoft to drive innovation in the manufacturing industry,” Arkan said. “Our customers are excited about new digital capabilities like those provided by RCIP and the PI Integrator for Microsoft Azure that can help transform their business.”
Product/Service
Headquartered in San Leandro, California, OSIsoft delivers the PI System, the industry standard in enterprise infrastructure, for management of real-time data and events. The PI System enables businesses to capture and leverage sensor-based data across the enterprise to improve efficiency, asset health, productivity, sustainability, quality, safety and security. Beyond being just a data historian, the open infrastructure connects data, operations and people to enable real-time operational intelligence and transform operations. With installations in 125 countries spanning the globe, the OSIsoft PI System is used in manufacturing, energy, utilities, life sciences, data centers, oil and gas, facilities and process industries.
Industry
Manufacturing & Resources, Oil & Gas, Power & Utilities, Discrete, CPG, Food & Beverage