Analysis of current status, advantages and misunderstandings of digital transformation in chemical industry

According to the 2017 Global Digital Chemicals Survey, more than 50% of chemical companies still lack a digital strategy and transformation roadmap. Two-thirds of chemical companies with $5 billion to $25 billion in annual revenue operating specialty chemicals (specialty chemicals, coatings, plastics, and composites) are in the early stages of digital transformation. In the petrochemical industry, the concept of integrated automation systems and digital plants has begun to permeate the industry. In the past 10 years, large-scale petrochemical and coal chemical engineering have adopted integrated automation systems without exception.

Although most chemical companies are constantly generating large amounts of data, most are not adopting digital technologies. If managers collect and analyze the data, they can explore the possibilities of increasing production and turnover, reducing energy consumption, and reducing maintenance costs.

Misunderstandings in the digital transformation of chemical enterprises

In recent years, the chemical industry has become increasingly competitive, due to changing customer needs, regulatory environment, dynamic costs, putting pressure on chemical companies, digital transformation has become an inevitable development trend. However, in the process of transformation, there are still some problems such as concept errors, insufficient understanding of digital needs, unsatisfactory digital construction effect, and lack of funds and talents.

In the process of digital transformation, large-scale capital investment in the early stage of chemical enterprises can make great progress in hardware construction in a relatively short time. Therefore, in the subsequent digital construction, people are accustomed to following the existing experience in the construction of hardware infrastructure, resulting in some wrong ideas that restrict digital construction. For example, some people think that the digital construction of chemical enterprises is only a problem of the information department, resulting in low participation of business departments; Some people think that it is necessary to build it first and then change it while using it, which can easily lead to the failure of information system construction.

Due to the different industry process routes and production modes, the demand for digitalization is also very different. At the same time, the norms and standards between industries are not the same, resulting in poor information transmission between industries, reducing the efficiency of enterprise digital construction. The digital construction of chemical enterprises cannot be separated from the construction of data foundation, management foundation and technology foundation. However, due to the relatively low technical level and management standards, the basic data of some enterprises is distorted or incomplete, which is not conducive to the digital construction of enterprises.

In the implementation of digital construction, some chemical enterprises blindly pursue the large and complete system functions, resulting in the digital system of chemical enterprises can not match their own management and business processes, can not achieve the ideal effect, and ultimately lead to the waste of investment and idle equipment.

In addition, digital construction is a complex system project, which needs to invest a lot of funds and the support of compound talent team. At present, due to the lack of digital understanding and lack of capital investment, many enterprises find it difficult to give full play to the role of digital construction in enhancing the core competitiveness of enterprises. At the same time, the lack of high-quality information technology personnel is also one of the direct reasons for the smooth development of enterprise digitalization.

Fourth, the focus of chemical enterprises to promote digital transformation

Based on the current situation of the digital development of chemical enterprises, China's chemical enterprises should also comprehensively consider their own advantages and shortcomings, and actively promote the landing of digital strategy. According to the specific deployment of the intelligent manufacturing pilot demonstration special action of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, combined with the actual situation of the chemical industry, the main tasks and focus on the following five aspects, and orderly promote the digital transformation of the industry.

First, build a strategic system for the digital economy, highlighting the forward-looking. Draw a roadmap for digital transformation, make a list of tasks, promote the solution of problems one by one, and accelerate the digital construction of enterprises. To complete the digital and intelligent transformation of equipment, through the Internet of Things technology, to achieve the integration of production equipment and virtual information network; Deepen the system application and optimize the business process, optimize the system and process, and improve the system application efficiency.

The second is to promote the comprehensive integration and deepening application of enterprise production management system and operation management system. In the aspect of vertical integration, the effective integration of management system and control system and the integration and sharing of data information are realized. In terms of production process management, improve the efficiency of process control system, promote the application of advanced optimization system (APC) in chemical industry, achieve smooth operation of enterprise production process, and improve energy utilization efficiency. At the level of production and operation, improve the application penetration rate, coverage and application depth of production execution system (MES). In terms of horizontal integration, it promotes the integration of raw material procurement, production and manufacturing process, logistics and warehousing production, supply and marketing industry chain, and realizes the goal of product traceability, manufacturing process monitoring, and benefits real-time calculation.