International. Schneider Electric and Accenture have completed the development of the Schneider Electric Digital Services Factory, a "virtual" factory that enables Schneider Electric, the global specialist in energy management and automation, to build and expand new offerings in areas such as predictive maintenance, asset monitoring and energy optimization quickly.
Staffed by professional Schneider Electric and Accenture, the Digital Factory collects data from millions of connected assets across Schneider Electric's entire infrastructure and customer sites to accelerate the development of new services, from idea conception to industrialization and time-to-market.
The collaboration is part of a five-year contract Schneider Electric awarded to Accenture in January 2016 to support the ongoing deployment of Digital IoT solutions and services.
The Digital Factory provides a range of services ranging from the generation and incubation of new ideas, the design and analysis of potential offerings to the deployment and expansion of solutions. It also offers the analytical and IoT capabilities to accelerate the development of new services.
By helping to develop the Digital Factory through change management services and technical and strategic consulting, Accenture provides a range of services around innovation and the development of customer-centric solutions, the development and analysis of business models, and the "New Digital Service Lifecycle", that combines customer analysis with the development and execution of agile and repetitive services.
"We are driving the digitization of our businesses and the Digital Factory will significantly accelerate our efforts," said Cyril Perducat, Executive Vice President, Digital Transformation and IoT, Schneider Electric. "With new capabilities like analytics, creative thinking, prototyping and rapid service repetition, we've become able to bring new services to market much, much faster."
Accenture's research shows that while industrial manufacturers believe digital technologies are vital to their future, they risk losing their profits and market share because their levels of digital adoption and ability to innovate are low. Two-thirds of the industrial companies Accenture surveyed said they are feeling the impact of digital disruption, but half of them are still not investing extensively in this area as part of their overall business strategy.
"Schneider Electric aims to reduce the time from product ideation to market by 80 percent," says Karim Chaabouni, managing director of Accenture's industrial practice. "Schneider Electric wants to deliver innovation at every level, from products connected to network edge control to analytics, applications and services. With the help of Accenture and the new factory, they will be able to achieve this."
The Schneider Electric Digital Services Factory is part of the company's programs around the recent launch of the IoT-based open and interoperable systems architecture and platform, called EcoStruxure, which leverages high-generation IoT, cloud, analytics, mobile and cybersecurity technologies to deliver added value around security. reliability, efficiency, sustainability and connectivity to Schneider Electric customers.
EcoStruxure is Schneider Electric's open, interoperable IoT-based system architecture that delivers greater value in terms of security, reliability, efficiency, sustainability and connectivity for our customers. EcoStruxure leverages IoT, mobility, discovery, cloud, analytics and cybersecurity technologies to deliver innovation at every level, including connected products, edge and application control, analytics and services. EcoStruxure has been deployed in more than 450,000 facilities, supported by 9,000 system integrators, connecting more than one billion devices.
