News and Press Releases

ECG Hosts Live Webinar for Newest Transient/Start Up and Shutdown Analysis Tool

Akron, Ohio, October 8, 2022 – Predict-It Pathway Webinar with Techniques for Data-driven Asset Monitoring

We are pleased to announce that Predict-It’s new transient analysis module, Pathway, is now available to OSIsoft PI and current Predict-It users. Pathway enables the monitoring of transient processes, such as asset start-ups, shutdowns, and batch production processes.

ECG will be hosted a webinar on October 5th, 2022, in which we will be demonstrated the capabilities of Pathway and showing how this new module will integrate with Predict-It’s existing anomaly detection and diagnostics, and can be used as a standalone module. To view this webinar On Demand, please click on the link below!

Predict-It Pathway Webinar
Passcode: 8A+yS%g5

CITGO Using Glance and E-Notification softwares in 3 U.S. Sites

Akron, Ohio, September 3, 2022 – By adding Glance to their operations, the oil and gas leader gains further insight into their real-time refinery conditions through visualization of plant environments with live data and user-administered email and text notifications.

Vistra Energy Adds to their Use of Predict-It with Advanced Solar Diagnostics

Akron, Ohio, August 1, 2022 – Vistra Energy expands their use of Predict-It technology to help them see greater profitability in their solar investments. Narrowing down the cause of loss of output can be overwhelming when dealing with thousands of units, such as with solar assets. Predict-It aids customers in this task by automating the anomaly detection and diagnosis of sustained alarms, to take the guess work out of maintenance and corrective action.

Predict-It + PlantView Team Up for Superior Case Management

Akron, Ohio, March 3, 2022 – ECG partners with Power Vision to add the power of PlantView to Predict-It. Now customers will be able to record, manage and take action on their Predict-It alarms with improved tracking ability. Predict-It Case Management is available in 2 levels of service. Case Management Lite tracks all Predict-It alarms. Case Management Advanced gives users the additional capability to add and track other types of condition reports with a case, like tech exams, oil analysis, and more. Case Management makes data accessible across the enterprise to a wide variety of users and aids in adherence to a PdM Program.

Features:

• Stores all information in a centralized, structured Oracle database.
• Search function enables query of historical information to aid technical staff with troubleshooting and operational analysis.
• Fully user configurable to match facility hierarchy. Users define plant systems, diagnostic technologies and the equipment participating in the PdM Program.
• Completely customizable security model to control various level user access and privileges in the system.

Predict-It Version 2021 R1.

Akron, Ohio, October 4, 2021 – The newest version of Predict-It is now available for all users with an active Technical Service Agreement. There have been significant updates to the organizational tools and user roles, as well as the ability to connect to powerful business intelligence platforms. Customer suggestions helped inform some of these changes. Thank you to Chris J. with Vistra Energy, Matt B. with Mitsubishi Power, Rajesh K with CS Energy and Tony C with Southern Company.

The following Enhancements and Fixes are available in the latest release:

• Added new Assignment Groups system for managing responsibility of alarms and enhanced alarm management.
• Added new Labeling system for folders, assets, and models.
• Added new Public API support to provide Predict-It information for consumption in systems such as Microsoft Power BI
• Enhanced support for TLS 1.2
• 100+ performance enhancements and bug fixes.

Store in InfluxDB. Build with Glance.

Akron, Ohio, February 10, 2021 – Glance, ECG’s process visualization solution, is now Influx DB compatible. InfluxDB is an open-source time series database and is optimized for fast, high-availability storage and retrieval of time series data in fields such as operations monitoring and real-time analytics.

ECG teams up with Power Vision

Akron, Ohio, March 3, 2021 – We have partnered with Power Vision to expand Predict-It’s capabilities. Customers can now employ the case management module to form cases based on a pattern of anomalies. Manage cases directly within Predict-It. Use stored information from Technology Exam findings to enhance diagnostic results. Communication amongst team members to resolve the case. Once resolved, store case conditions and communications in the PdM vault for future reference.

ECG President, Michael Santucci presents at OSIsoft webinar.

Akron, Ohio, September 29, 2020 – CTO and ECG’s President, Michael Santucci presents on Real-Time Digital Asset Condition Monitoring with OSIsoft. Predict-It allows users to take control of their condition-based maintenance efforts and is a valuable tool for OSIsoft PI users to take their equipment monitoring and diagnosis to an expert level. As the power industry undergoes rapid transformation, the adoption of renewables, a strong focus on reliability and emphasis on asset maintenance for increased availability become ever more important for industry leaders. This webinar focused on how operators can expand their resources and optimize their operations with digital solutions, a topic on which Mr. Santucci is a recognized expert.

US Navy’s SmartGrid Project

Akron, Ohio, May 16, 2019 – ECG is proud to be part of the US Navy’s SmartGrid Project. ECG’s Predict-It Solution was chosen to provide advanced predictive analytics and diagnostics for monitoring of the US Navy’s building and port facilities. Monitoring of the US Navy’s nine major operating sites is done remotely at their Naval Facilities Engineering Command Center. An overview of the US Navy’s Smart Grid project is shown in the video below.

ECG's Predict-It™ solution selected for Power Optimization Center's equipment reliability monitoring software

Akron, Ohio, May 9, 2019 /PRNewswire – ECG, a leader of Predictive Analytics software for use in monitoring real time equipment and process health, today announced that Luminant has selected the Predict-It™ Anomaly Detection Solution for remote monitoring of 32,000 megawatts of its generation fleet. Luminant operates its Texas-based Power Optimization Center (POC) to remotely monitor its diverse fleet of assets for early signs of equipment and process abnormalities, and to take proactive, planned steps to mitigate identified risks.

Luminant recently presented at the OSIsoft 2019 PI World Conference in San Francisco about its implementation of the Predict-It™ solution. The presentation can be viewed HERE . The Luminant team highlights its journey rolling out OSIsoft's PI System with contextualized data in Asset Framework in a cloud environment, and implementation of Predict-It™ in five weeks across 72 generating units. "Luminant has done a tremendous job in leveraging the PI System to create a competitive advantage over their peers through implementation of advanced business use cases," said David Thomason, Industry Principal at OSIsoft.

ECG's president Mike Santucci stated "We are very pleased that Luminant has selected our Predict-It™ solution as their predictive analytics software of choice." ECG's solution utilizes existing process data and turns it into meaningful, actionable information for more informed decision-making. Users can also take advantage of Predict-It™'s embedded Diagnostic Reasoner to probabilistically assess current machine faults for apparent cause diagnosis.

Navigant Research's White Paper "Finding the ROI in Digital Transformation" Cites ECG's Predict-It Solution in use at AGL

Akron, Ohio, May 6, 2019 /PRNewswire – Engineering Consultants Group, Inc.™ (ECG, Inc., www.ecg-inc.com ), a company focused on software development for end users of OSIsoft's PI System (OSIsoft, www.osisoft.com), is pleased to be cited in a recent White Paper issued by Navigant Research (www.navigantresearch.com). The White Paper, titled "Finding the ROI in Digital Transformation" was commissioned by OSIsoft to analyze its PI System use case, and to identify and highlight key trends and findings that its platform enabled for customers to gain accelerated positive returns of investment (ROIs).

In the Navigant paper, five OSIsoft PI System customers' digital transformation journeys are discussed in detail. ECG's Predict-It predictive analytics solution is highlighted in the case study for the AGL Group (AGL, www.agl.com.au), based in Australia. In early 2015, AGL began searching for a predictive analytics solution that could be developed exclusively for AGL's OSIsoft™ platform. "We needed a technology that would provide very early warning of active failure modes," said David Bartolo, Head of Operational Systems and Technology, AGL. "We wanted our assets to provide predictable reliability and this was only possible with an early warning system technology that we did not yet possess."

As part of their Digital Transformation Journey, AGL setup an Operational Diagnostics Center (ODC), which leverages the PI system to provide data archival, visualization, advanced analytics, and to connect to OSIsoft partner products like Predict-It. Based on their digital transformation work to date, AGL has reported financial benefits of $17.9M USD over the last 3 years, and a payback of less than 9 months for the software investments.

TEPCO to Implement ECG's Predict-It™ Analytics Solution

Akron, Ohio, April 24, 2019 /PRNewswire – Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) has selected Engineering Consultant Group's (ECG) Predict-It™ predictive analytics solution for their real time, equipment health remote monitoring technology at their remote monitoring center and Internet of Things (IoT) optimization center.

TEPCO (www.tepco.co.jp) , the largest utility in Japan, generates, transmits, and distributes electricity using hydroelectric, thermal, and nuclear power sources. TEPCO 's new Remote Monitoring and Internet of Things (IoT) optimization center will utilize ECG's Predict-It™ analytics to detect anomalies across their own domestic thermal power plants operations, such as Chiba, Futtsu, and Shinagawa, as well as other international thermal power station operators.

The monitoring center optimizes performance and reliability of thermal power plants through early anomaly detection, advanced diagnosis, and effective communication of developing issues to end users. Considered with other software and data analytic platforms, ECG's Predict-It™ was chosen to serve as an Early Anomaly Detection solution with the intention of optimizing power plant equipment reliability and maintenance practices.

Predict-It™ delivers value through the early detection and prevention of equipment health degradation and by providing advanced diagnostic capabilities for troubleshooting. Predict-It™ monitors critical equipment in real-time process environments and uses advanced pattern recognition methods to recognize potential faults. If the software identifies a deviation outside of a tolerance limit, it will initiate an event for a subject matter expert to review and investigate. The software leverages machine learning and advanced equipment diagnostics reasoning to provide advanced assessment of the equipment health and potential causes. The built in Diagnostic Reasoner™ leverages Bayesian Network technology for modeling of fault-symptom interactions. The system provides ranked probabilities of likely faults incorporating real-time anomalies along with other condition based health parameters. The case based networks get more precise as each new fault signature incident is included.

With Predict-It™, TEPCO will raise the bar on service, reliability, efficiency, and compliance beyond the plateau levels currently achievable using all other conventional best practices or alternative solution providers.

"TEPCO is leveraging their vast experience in power generation linked with advanced predictive analytics and diagnostics to gain new insights into operational and equipment abnormalities. Predict-It™ will complement their engineering and operational focus in the TEPCO remote monitoring center and Internet of Things (IoT) optimization center" said Jim Scavuzzo, Vice President of Product Development at ECG.