A new partnership will benefit the energy resources sector as it aims to assist the industry in developing and deploying sensor technology to diagnose problems and optimise efficiency in industrial processes.
As reported, the National Energy Resource Australia (NERA), which is Australia’s Industry Growth Centre for energy resources, will provide matched funding to support the Wireless Industrial Sensor Environment (WISE) Program.
What the initiative is
The initiative will demonstrate how productivity and cost efficiencies can be improved across the energy and resources supply chain through a non-competitive collaboration between industry, technology and research participants.
WISE is a partnership between Innovation Central Perth (ICP) and a growing number of industry members.
ICP is a collaboration led by a multinational IT and networking company together with Curtin University; Data61, the data and digital specialist arm of Australia’s national science agency; and an oil and gas company.
WISE aims to boost productivity and cost efficiencies across industry sectors by leading best practices for data management and the widespread deployment of wireless sensor technologies.
Benefits of the initiative
The WISE program gave members the opportunity to solve business challenges by providing the resources to collaborate and test Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology.
Members are regularly brought together through several workshops, networking functions, problem solving events and design thinking groups to prototype solutions.
It offers a unique open collaboration format to its members, which includes a mix of industry and end-user organisations, technology providers, and research organisations.
The program taps into a broad resource of expertise and talent from ICP’s partners and other WISE members, including from NERA, which is a member and project partner who collaborates right across the energy resources sector.
Utilising emerging tech
NERA’s Chief Executive Officer shared that the program would enable new technologies to be deployed at speed to assist industry address contemporary and future challenges.
These challenges stem from inspection and maintenance schedules, ageing infrastructure and other operational issues.
With the emergence of technologies such as cloud computing, machine learning, artificial intelligence and big data, the sector has the opportunity to improve the operation and maintenance of assets by cost-effectively deploying IIoT technology.
Access and Resources
NERA is pleased to support the WISE Program and similar initiatives that can help streamline the adoption of innovative, cutting-edge solutions for the benefit of Australia’s energy resources sector and the broader economy.
Moreover, it would also support projects that will leverage Australian innovation into global supply chains and create new value and job opportunities.
The program provides industry with a test-friendly environment and the resources to collaborate, develop, and deploy real-world Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technology solutions to solve business challenges.
This includes access to the following:
- Existing infrastructure located at Innovation Central Perth and Curtin University’s main Perth campus for experimentation and testing
- Sensors provided by the Centre and the ability to test their own
- Subject matter experts to help identify and validate the most appropriate sensor, connectivity and analytics technology stack to address their most challenging problems in operating various physical assets
WISE also enables industry participants to begin building in-house capabilities to deploy and manage the technology tested within the Innovation Centre.
Sensors available for members include acoustic, ultrasonic, location, vibration, soil moisture, surface moisture, temperature, CO2, VOx and luminosity.
