Sustainability has moved from an ambition to an expectation for industry. Businesses can meet that expectation and unlock decarbonisation benefits by drawing on the expert skills and knowledge of a service partner, writes Richard Walley, Power Services Offer Manager, UK&I – Schneider Electric.
As we pass through the halfway point of 2025, the UK’s industrial businesses have less than 25 years to meet the legal Net Zero targets set by the Government in 2021. In order to achieve the targets, businesses will need to take action in multiple ways, for example through electrification, sourcing of low-carbon energy and by improving the efficiency and productivity of their processes.
When it comes to boosting efficiency, an important tactic is adopting advanced automation. This helps to achieve the benefits of decarbonisation such as cutting energy costs and boosting reputation. It can also increase flexibility to better meet customer demand. However, successful automation requires the right strategy.
Developing the right strategy
The challenge with developing a good strategy for power and automation is that it requires expertise in technology, operations and changing legislation, as well as knowledge of the facility and the objectives of its management. In addition, it is important to understand how trends are shaping the market, and what they mean for the facility’s future workforce and capacity.
Furthermore, creating a strategy requires dedicated time and space, and this is often the most difficult point for an in-house team with immediate priorities and a heavy workload. That is why it is worth drawing on the expertise of a service partner. They will bring in-depth knowledge of technology and can offer independent and vendor neutral advice and guidance.
Three focus areas for consultancy
A service partner can offer consultancy advice and guidance in three areas. The first is mapping current performance to develop a long-term roadmap for power and automation technologies. Typically, this starts by auditing a facility so that the partner fully understands the current technology and its applications. This establishes a baseline to start planning, and it can also identify priorities for immediate maintenance.
The partner will then evaluate current needs and future objectives to establish where capacity will be required in future – this is an essential step in long term return on investment. Only then can the partner start focusing on options for technology to achieve goals such as installing renewables, automating process steps, adding robotics cells, or embarking on a digital transformation journey.
When looking at technology, a service partner from a technology vendor will bring the additional benefit of familiarity with the most advanced capabilities, that are normally reserved for global enterprises with large budgets. They can draw on experience of deploying that technology for industrial facilities facing similar circumstances.
Selective and supported modernisation
The second area where consultancy support provides value is in selective and supported modernisation. This will help businesses to plan for obsolescence of technologies and retrofit or upgrade projects.
A good service partner will build circularity into modernisation projects by replacing or retrofitting only time-served components and retaining assets that still have many years of operational life. Circularity shifts businesses from a linear install, use, dispose model to one of continuous value where each asset across the facility’s entire lifecycle is optimised, supported, and extended. This protects sustainability by preserving the carbon footprint embedded in the retained assets, it also protects uptime as it avoids time-consuming and costly replacements.
Always-on advice and technical support
The third area where a service partner provides value is through maintenance-as-a-service with 24/7 remote monitoring, diagnostics and automatic alarming, backed up by a remote expert who acts like an extension of the team. This service redefines maintenance by freeing up the in-house operational team to focus on more strategic tasks, such as protecting quality, meeting customer demand or onboarding new team members.
Benefits to the on-site team include reductions in electrical failure risk, unplanned downtime, and planned downtime costs. Circularity also plays a role here as this digital approach to remote services will extend asset lifespan and avoid carbon emissions.
Another factor when considering service is that it can alleviate the burden of recruitment, onboarding, training and certification for skillsets that are hard to recruit and retain. A service partner will bring certified people with the right skills – and because they apply their specialism across many companies, these experts bring with them valuable skills that may be hard to utilise in a full time in house role.
Moving to a circular future
Sustainability and technology are evolving rapidly with regulations tightening and an expectation that the workforce should be able to do more with less. It’s essential for industrial businesses to put the right strategy in place for power and automation – but they often lack the time and the specialist knowledge to complete the job. Drawing on the expertise of a service partner like Schneider Electric, manufacturers, utility providers, logistics teams and critical facilities can overcome this challenge and provide a low-risk way to plan for and meet their future objectives.
Learn more about how Schneider Electric has tailored its EcoCare service packages for the challenges faced by industrial companies today.
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