"Things are pretty bad," Seixas says, "because there are no standards. So we build global templates for our customers. Accenture applies a combination of Lean/Six Sigma and Process optimization to troubleshoot processes and find Quick Wins opportunities."
This was an amazing extension of the lunchtime discussion I had with Pat Kennedy, CEO of OSIsoft, Herman Storey, late of Shell, and Duncan Schleiss, the father of DeltaV. Kennedy was talking about why OSIsoft continues to only map to the physical model because even in a single plant, there are no master data templates.
Accenture has established a center of excellence in agribusiness in Sao Paolo...interestingly because their captive system integrator firm is Brazilian.
Stuxnet was a wake up call, Seixas said. But Accenture is protecting their customers' assets using a top down IT centric formula which Stuxnet proved doesn't work.
Accenture has built Operational Intelligence centers -- not control rooms but analytic centers for information-based decision making.
Seixas says his customers are in a fever for Operational Intelligence centers.
"Agribusiness is hard to automate but they need to automate every step. The cost in producing ethanol is primarily in the field (65%) and that's where the work is done."
