Annual Buyers Guide

F reak floods caused by downpours can cause devastating effects, but what’s that got to do with big data? Much like constant downfalls of water, there’s lots of data being generated — and it needs to go somewhere. Just as a huge volume of water won’t be managed effectively without the correct infrastructure in place, neither will huge volumes of data. Yet ironically, you can use big data to prepare for flooding and other environmental or operational risks. Operational risks refer to any kind of disruption to normal processes that could lead to a loss of customers and revenue. While you 20 | Plant & Works Engineering www.pwemag.co.uk Annual Buyers’ Guide 2020 Smart Maintenance Management Focus Managing the big data flood Jonathan Wilkins, marketing director at obsolete parts supplier, EU Automation looks at how to effectively funnel big data for use in operational risk management. can’t anticipate every possible eventuality — like a freak downpour — you can focus on getting the level of risk in your facility down to a tolerable level. Accidents, in their broader sense, are rare events that occur when a series of failures of risk management barriers occur. However, post- incident investigations often show that several near misses actually occurred before the accident took place. While these failures may not have been observable to the human eye, they could have been detected through rigorous data collection and analysis. So, what exactly is ‘big data’? Given the buzzword’s widespread use across industries, it is not surprising that the exact meaning of the term is often subjective. As per the IBM Institute for Business Value, it really all comes down to four Vs: volume, variety, velocity and veracity. Volume Big data is, unsurprisingly, big. As the name suggests, big data relies on massive datasets, with volumes such as petabytes and zetabytes commonly referenced. However, these large datasets aren’t as difficult to collect as you might imagine. New technologies are increasing the size of data sets that every device, facility and process generates. It’s growing at an exponential rate