IBM and Black & Veatch Collaborate

Notable collaboration on AI asset monitoring maintenance and digital twins.

IBM and Black & Veatch Collaborate on AI-Driven Monitoring Solutions

Publish date: Tuesday, August 3, 2021   |   Location Armonk, New York and Overland Park, Kansas

Predictive asset monitoring and digital twins to help improve industrial asset reliability, lifespan and performance

IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Black & Veatch today announced a collaboration to jointly market Asset Performance Management (APM) solutions, including remote monitoring technologies that combine near real-time data analytics with artificial intelligence to help customers keep equipment and assets running at peak performance and reliability.

The companies are collaborating on solutions combining Black & Veatch Asset Management Services (AMS) and digital analytics with IBM Maximo Application Suite. These solutions are designed to help organizations support more resilient operations for industrial, energy and utilities assets. Black & Veatch operates four monitoring and diagnostics centers and has vast experience with near real-time, detection and analysis of emerging problems by running thousands of models and scenarios to predict changes in asset performance. IBM Maximo Application Suite’s Assist, Monitor, Health, Predict and Visual Inspection capabilities aim to integrate Black & Veatch monitoring and diagnostics expertise and data analytics with maintenance management to bring them into the field where the insights can be applied.

The two companies are also planning to expand the IBM Digital Twin Exchange using Black & Veatch’s digital twin asset models. “Digital twins will be a necessary part of the industrial sector’s digital future because of the detailed understanding they provide and expert analysis they enable for complex assets,” said Dave Brill, Vice President and Director of Asset Management Services with Black & Veatch. “The IBM Digital Twin Exchange can make this level of understanding more accessible by connecting customers in asset-intensive industries and in need of digital twins with members of IBM’s rapidly growing partner ecosystem that can share their models. As part of this collaboration, Black & Veatch plans to develop digital twin asset models to sell through the Digital Twin Exchange, expanding the library’s inventory.”

Faced with aging equipment, tightening budgets, increased regulation and rapidly changing market dynamics, operators and engineers require increased visibility into their equipment performance and asset conditions. Remote monitoring technology can help organizations understand their assets better by providing a near real-time view of operations. Once data is collected, it can enable both predictive and conditions-based maintenance, where problems are proactively corrected before they escalate into system breakdown, in an effort to limit downtime and maximize productivity.  ... '