CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7 - 24

24

IT needs to be much less
technologically and operationally

We're currently looking at all

focused and much more business

the ways we can take the data

focused - even when the company's

we're already collecting and

business model remains unchanged.

combine it with our information to
bring it back to our customers as

A BIG DATA OPPORTUNITY

a value-added service, something

There is more sophisticated technology in our

that goes beyond simply

product-the wind turbine itself-than ever before.

manufacturing the product.

There have been sensors in our turbines for as long as
I can remember. In the beginning, they monitored very
basic information like temperature that could assist the
workers who might service the product. Our new models
run SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition)
software to monitor and control individual turbines
remotely. We are in contact with 27,000 turbines, with
1,300 sensor points in each. Every ten minutes, data is
sent from those machines to our data repository. Those

GIVING CUSTOMERS WHAT THEY WANT

petabytes of data, combined with additional information
like service history, enable us to be more proactive

One of the biggest challenges in developing this new

about maintenance.

services business is figuring out where the business value
actually lives. We have endless data around which we

opportunity for us. Five years ago, we began exploring

could build new offerings. There has been no shortage of

how we could use that data to provide more value-added

ideas about that within our organization. But the question

services for our customers. Today, it's something we're

is, what are the things that the customer will really value?

incorporating into our future business strategy. For

The only way to answer that is to go out and ask them.

example, it's critically important to our customers that

Often our customers haven't even considered these

turbines run when the wind blows. If we can service that

types of service offerings-they didn't even know they

turbine when the wind is not blowing, we're helping to

were possible. So you have to sit down with them and

optimize their business case. By combining data related

start a dialogue about what potential they see in this

to the turbine with weather data, we can schedule service

data. As an organization, that means we must have new

visits in a way that reduces or eliminates expensive

capabilities. We need more than the mechanics and

downtime. We're currently looking at all the ways we

engineers that have been building and selling turbines for

can take the data we're already collecting and combine

the last 30 years.

it with our information to bring it back to our customers

Like many other manufacturers, we focused for

as a value-added service, something that goes beyond

years on creating physical machines that a customer

simply manufacturing the product.

would buy. As those machines have become more

Microsoft patents ones and zeroes,
says The Onion.

1998

1998

But that big data also present a big business

The Last Broadcast, the first feature-length movie
shot, edited, and distributed digitally, is delivered
via satellite download to five theaters across the
United States.
CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of CIO Straight Talk - Issue 7
