Dawid Pilc: As far back as I can remember, my dream was to start a company and build something new, something unique. I always struggled with fitting into rigid structures and being just a cog in the corporate machine. This later translated into ConnectPoint, where for over 10 years we had virtually no organisational hierarchy, keeping formalities to the bare minimum. The business began with an idea to build fibre-optic networks, but that project fell through. What remained, however, were industry contacts and the search for a new idea, which took nearly three years. 

Damian Witanowski: Today, we’re a leading player in technologies for the Manufacturing and Utilities sectors. Do you recall a pivotal moment when the decision was made to “go in this direction”? After all, it wasn’t the plan from the very start. 

Dawid Pilc: It started quite typically. A client had a need, and the market lacked the right expertise. Around that time, I met Jakub Tomiczek, and we decided to build a company focused on bridging the worlds of OT and IT, delivering organisations insights into their production processes. We signed a partnership agreement with Aveva PI System (formerly Osisoft PI), began developing our industry knowledge, and started building a team specialised in processing streaming data. 

Damian Witanowski: Alongside our extensive service offerings, we’re also developing our own products. The Smart RDM Platform is particularly close to your heart – “your baby”. How did the idea for this tool come about, and how has it evolved over the years? 

Dawid Pilc: Now we have more “babies” at ConnectPoint that complement each other perfectly and allow us to meet most of the utility market’s needs.

Smart RDM is now fully independent. The product is doing very well and is being developed by an excellent team. The idea originated with one of our clients, and our consultant suggested we could turn it into something much better, done our way. A second client picked up on the idea, and a third sparked its rapid growth. I remember these words: “Give us something that lets us access all our data from one place, see it in real time, edit it, and report it to the board.”

Today, we have a full application based on containers, available in on-premise and cloud versions. It uses advanced algorithms to support maintenance and production continuity, and, of course, AI.

What’s most important, though, is that our clients trusted us and have been helping us develop the product for years. 

Damian Witanowski: We both know that despite the rise of AI, ConnectPoint’s success still hinges on people. How has our team evolved over these 15 years? After all, some of our colleagues have been with us almost from the beginning. And how has managing a team grown from 10 to 140 people? 

Dawid Pilc: The difference is immense because there’s no longer time to chat with everyone. We have team-building events that allow for brief exchanges, but combined with the widespread trend of remote working, it doesn’t make things easier. We manage this through team leaders. Most of them were appointed internally, they know the company well, and I think they’re doing an impressive job of meeting our goals. 

Damian Witanowski: Our client base has changed over the years. Do you have any particularly memorable stories from projects or client collaborations? 

Dawid Pilc: After so many years, there are quite a few stories, but instead, I’ll share some good quotes:

• A major energy project: “The delay was due to both sides. Unfortunately, we didn’t pull our weight, but ConnectPoint didn’t account for our inertia.”
   
• A big utility project: “We need a company with passion.”
   
• A large manufacturing project: “Finally, someone sorted out our Excel mess.”
   
• I especially like the second one. And I still wonder how to keep that passion alive in the team as we grow. 

Damian Witanowski: Technology has undergone a massive transformation – AI, machine learning, IoT… Yet, we keep up with the changes and align with new trends. 

Dawid Pilc: It’s complicated because whether you’re keeping up or not is quite relative. Essentially, we try to stay slightly ahead of market needs, which isn’t always a good thing; sometimes clients, especially in Poland, aren’t ready for it. We do a lot for international companies, and particularly in the broad energy sector, it’s worth tapping into our experience from completed projects. 

Damian Witanowski: “Saving the world through technology” – that’s a slogan that fits ConnectPoint. Our solutions improve efficiency, protect the environment, and help build a sustainable future. A few words on that? 

Dawid Pilc: It just so happened that most of what we do serves some form of optimisation. Efficiency always leads to reduced resource use, which in turn benefits the environment. It’s gratifying that our solutions contribute to this, but above all, they help clients cut costs and achieve quick returns on investment. 

Damian Witanowski: We’ve talked about the past and present – what about the future? What are ConnectPoint’s plans for the coming years? 

Dawid Pilc: Our main goal is to improve service quality and employee satisfaction – that always leads to happy clients. We plan to heavily invest in expanding our services and products in the market, establish a stronger presence abroad, make our products more independent, and build a partner network. So far, when we’ve really wanted something, we’ve made it happen, so I have strong faith in these plans too. 

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70 presentations in three days

Three days spent in business meetings and more than 70 presentations to visitors to our stand are now paying off – we are just finalising the sales talks we started in Amsterdam. We are celebrating success because we have found confirmation of the usefulness of the tool we went to the event with. Our stand was under siege – so much so that on the last day of the conference, when the technical team had already finished dismantling the stands, we were still talking to visitors.

The annual conference is one of the largest events in Europe dedicated to products supplied by AVEVA, and since this is the case, there was no shortage of companies in Amsterdam offering technology solutions to support digital transformation. How can our product, the Smart RDM platform, help with this? We were most often asked how reports and alerts work on it – we talked about these and many other functionalities of the platform with customers, presenting examples of our implementations to date.

From Excel to Smart RDM

Excel – everyone uses it, from small businesses to large corporations. The problem arises when there is a growing number of Excels in a company – separate, unmanageable sources of information that are correctly interpreted only by their creators. With this approach, access to information is difficult and it is impossible to create reports that uniformly show the situation in the organisation.

At one of our clients we counted… 2,500 Excels. But this is a thing of the past. Today, the client uses the Smart RDM platform and it is this platform that ‘manages’ the data that was previously managed by multiple administrators. We have implemented the automation of reporting processes, which means that the system itself generates the correct reports and distributes them to the right recipients on the basis of a confirmed subscription. Smart RDM can also integrate with popular business reporting tools, including Tableau and Microsoft Power BI, and create reports based on data downloaded from them and production data. We talked about the business benefits of reporting automation at the Amsterdam conference.

Data, the foundation for processes

We mentioned ‘correct reports’ above: the word ‘correct’ is key, because creating reports with errors is meaningless and means risk to the business. We mentioned ‘correct reports’ above: the word ‘correct’ is key, because creating reports with errors is meaningless and means risk to the business. The same is true for alerts. This functionality of the Smart RDM platform consists, in simple terms, in sending notifications about a specific event, such as a failure or exceeding a given business indicator, to defined users. Event parameters can be configured according to the needs of the organisation. Valuable functionality, but only if the alert is not false and over the top. Whether it will be – depends on the correctness of the data involved and the process built on it.

In Amsterdam, the topic of data and the need to make even better use of it was a recurring theme both in the behind-the-scenes discussions and during the main presentations. Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Digital Twin – each of these developments in the latest technology allows us to ‘squeeze’ even more out of data and thus improve processes. How the “digital twin” works – we explained to visitors to our stand using the Smart RDM platform as an example. We also explained that our Digital Twin will not work properly if it is not fed with correct, verified data. Structured data, collected and available in one place, is the foundation for process improvement in an organisation and a prerequisite for a correct digital transformation. Without taking this first step, it is impossible to go further – and it is this first step that businesses often fear the most.

Smart RDM platform – what is this tool?

Customers share similar concerns before implementing the Smart RDM platform. But once the implementation is underway, they admit that their fears were a bit over the top. We, too, do not make promises to customers over the top. What does this mean? We do not promise that the implementation of the Smart RDM platform will go smoothly. But because we already have many such implementations to our credit, we thus know the risks involved and how to minimise them. We also know that in this first stage, i.e. when organising and consolidating the data, help, and involvement of the customer are necessary – something we always warn about.

Smart RDM platform – this name has been mentioned several times in the text. In this case – what is this tool?

We have only mentioned two functionalities, but this is only the beginning of our series of articles on Smart RDM. In the following texts, we will look at other capabilities of the platform and answer the question, often asked by customers: “What does Smart RDM do?”. But above all – we will tell you why it is worth having it in your company and what business benefits it provides. We are constantly adding new functionalities to the platform, so there will be no shortage of inspiration to talk about next year, at AVEVA PI World 2023.

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ConnectPoint becomes an official sponsor of the event. This will allow our team to talk even more widely about our experiences and the inspiring changes we have made in and with our customers, thanks to the implementation of Smart RDM, among others.

You can read more about the conference at AVEVA PI World 2022.

Day 1

This year’s conference theme is “Discover digital insights for sustainable innovation”. Right from the opening speeches, we could hear about the great motivation and obligation of the industry to change its operations to sustainable and ultimately climate neutral in 2050.

In his presentation, the CEO of AVEVA talked about three critical areas that customers, partners and employees will discuss in the following days:

1. How can we build systems and processes to track and reduce CO2 emissions?
2. How can companies become more resilient to shocks through technology and agile management?
3. How can we operate effectively in the new hybrid working model and ensure a secure connection with employees, partners and institutions?

Our team has been on the stand since the morning, ready for dedicated discussions about the future of the industry and the role of our Smart RDM in this transformation.

Thank you for all the conversations today!

Day 2

Today (Industry Day) is entirely devoted to customer and partner stories. From the morning, we will have presentations on eight thematic tracks and practical workshops:

1. Chemicals
2. Consumer Products (Food, Beverage, Agriculture)
3. Infrastructure, Water, Transmission & Distribution
4. Life Sciences
5. Manufacturing, Transportation, Marine
6. Oil & Gas
7. Power Generation
8. Process Industries (Forest and Paper, Mining and Metals)

We are looking forward to our customers’ presentations!

Our stand is crowded as our Smart RDM addresses specific needs in the industries we specialise in: Manufacturing, Renewable Energy, Power & Heat Generation, District Heating and Water Distribution.

We welcome every conversation, as they only reinforce our mission to create a single knowledge platform in organisations.

We ended the day with a fantastic networking event!

Day 3

We started the last day with Keynotes on the main stage. Guests discussed another important trend in the industry – generational change in their organisations. GenZ representatives have joined the workforce for the first time in recent years. Together we looked at how this will affect work organisations and the digitalisation process – after all, this is the digital generation.

AVEVA finally shared their vision of building a Multiverse for Industry which they are currently working on in their R&D departments. We can’t wait for the subsequent editions!

Our stand was vibrant throughout the conference. Thank you very much to all the guests for visiting in such large numbers and for the inspiring talks!

See you next year at AVEVA PI World.

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This acquisition will allow us to extend our offer with billing for the energy and gas industry, a debt collection system, a contact centre, a mobile application for collectors and fitters, ebok and a CMMS system.

As a result, our portfolio of products and services covers additional areas, from data optimisation and visualisation through analysis and predictive mechanisms for production processes to internal and external customer service. More information will be available soon at www.connectpoint.eu

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“The Internet of Things (IoT) gives us the ability to extend the functionality of physical devices with additional capabilities such as to change their behaviour remotely.” Jakub Tomiczek began.

Next, Jacob highlighted three essential elements that allow us to determine if something falls under the Internet of Things:

• Device – we need something to interact with the physical world. It could be a button that we can press or a sensor that measures something physical.
• Connectivity – this could be provided by a mobile network, but also by a more sophisticated network such as a military secure communications network.
• Significant and scalable computing power – this is needed to process the data generated by the devices into meaningful information.

IoT Adoption Trends

Now that we have learned the definition of the Internet of Things, the host could focus on questions regarding trends and examples.

Jakub emphasised a major shift in the business model among electrical equipment manufacturers ranging from the tiniest to massive industrial machines. “Another trend is the differentiation in selling hardware (physical devices) and software. A good example is manufacturers of sports equipment such as stationary bikes. We buy the equipment, but we also pay its manufacturer a monthly subscription to connect us to personalised workouts based on data collected by the device. The ‘personal trainer’ algorithm analyses our training parameters and automatically advises us on an exercise scenario. In this business model, the device can last longer than a 2-3 year warranty because we can refresh it by adding a new training programme or updating the software.

This model builds a relationship with the customer and provides the manufacturer, in addition to revenue from the sale of the device itself, with income from additional features, e.g. through monthly subscriptions. ConnectPoint builds such IoT solutions for manufacturers of, for example, PV systems, heat pumps, air conditioners and all kinds of building infrastructure.

We also create solutions for critical infrastructure in Industry and Energy that allow secure, non-invasive, real-time analysis of data such as from automation systems. In these areas, these solutions are used to optimise maintenance costs of capital-intensive equipment and production processes.

We call it predictive maintenance – with data from the equipment, we create a mathematical model of this equipment, e.g. a wind turbine, and we know how it should behave under given conditions. Thanks to precise data coming in, we monitor actual parameters of the device and look for deviations from the model – for example, if a substantial deviation appears, we can state with high probability that this device will break down soon. This allows the customer to protect himself against the costs of unexpected failures and lost production.”

Future shaped by the Internet of Things

The host then wanted to learn from our expert which elements of our everyday life will be changed the most soon by the development of the Internet of Things. In which areas will we see the emergence of new devices and services?

From ConnectPoint’s perspective, changes in the approach to energy will be critical. This revolution has been happening for several years and will only accelerate. “We are moving away from the model where we have one big power plant, operating in a stable, predictable environment and responsible for a large proportion of energy production. In that old model, the producer has to anticipate the electricity demand and ensure the system’s stability.

The new model involves a lot of distributed electricity sources. At the same time, we have to continue balancing the demand and supply of energy to keep the grid stabilised. There are more and more variables. It is becoming increasingly important to have a flow of information so that data on production and consumption is available in real-time.

In this model, producers and distributors need to influence consumer behaviour to balance the grid. This is where the Internet of Things is of great importance because we need to connect all these small installations, meters, and also devices that use this energy, such as washing machines and smart plugs. The consistent analysis allows us to keep this ecosystem in balance. ConnectPoint will be exploiting this area in the coming years.”

Smart homes – reality or future?

The following questions focused on the future of smart buildings. The media have been exploring this topic for quite some time now. Are we in for a breakthrough in our approach to the smart home here?

– “Smart buildings can be, and already are, single flats as well as entire systems such as residential blocks or complexes. What awaits us in the future is a connection of such systems. Our smart home will work with other homes and even with the urban ecosystem. For example, our rubbish collector will tell the rubbish truck that it needs to come, or our water supplier will know our profile and know that we have a leak at home. We are talking about an intelligent environment here.” – Jakub Tomiczek explained.

Smart cities – an extension of smart homes and sustainable energy

If flats and even residential areas can be smart and share data with cities, what future awaits cities themselves?

– “Let’s start with a definition. In my opinion, a Smart City is a city that can react quickly to events thanks to rapid access to information and will simply operate efficiently. It will be a city that is very enjoyable to live in.

A city that wants to be smart should take a comprehensive approach. A single isolated solution such as monitoring of trams does not make a city intelligent. The local government should have a communication infrastructure in place and a specific data management standard. Then the administration should use this infrastructure to build various digital services for the citizens. Residents should also have the initiative in creating this ecosystem.

This approach already works in some places in the world. The European Union is also investing in this, for the time being, creating smart quarters and neighbourhoods. I am involved in creating a zero-emission neighbourhood, where things like the rubbish truck are automated. The whole district will be self-sufficient in energy – it has its heat sources, power stations of various types, energy storage, heat storage and connected buildings, housing, chargers for buses and electric cars. It is based on open infrastructure – the residents have devices from different manufacturers in their homes, but it is all connected into one system, open to connecting more elements.” – Jakub Tomiczek commented.

How to build a smart city

The hosts and the audience were interested in whether, in that case, only new cities can be smart according to the definition. What future awaits for existing cities?

– “When we want a radically smart city, then yes, it should be designed from the beginning. In reality, these are just demonstration situations to illustrate what technology allows us to do. There are also loads of solutions to modernise current buildings to function better. For example, heat optimisation services were introduced in flats in large plate blocks from the communist era in one of the cities in Poland. After the blocks were insolated, people started to get too warm, so they opened the windows instead of turning the radiator down. This behaviour caused heating costs to rise instead of fall.

The Internet of Things allows us to detect when a window is open, to control the heating substation or thermostat heads with artificial intelligence and, as a result, reduce the heat supply. These are ready-made, commercially available solutions.

The city’s IT infrastructure is a critical element. The local government must understand that it will want to provide new services to residents and connect to new and old buildings. We need a vision and central planning for the city’s ecosystem. We can’t allow the city administration to be out of control and be influenced by temporary trends promoted by, for example, appliance manufacturers. We need a strategy for 10-20 years and consistent implementation of subsequent services for residents,” Jakub Tomiczek replied.

The entire programme can be listened to in Polish on TOKFM website: https://audycje.tokfm.pl/podcast/113208,Elektronika-uzytkowa-a-nadchodzaca-rewolucja-Jak-internet-rzeczy-zmienia-przedmioty-wokol-nas

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The National Centre for Research and Development (NCBiR) in Poland announced a call for proposals for a project focused on developing energy-efficient systems providing heat and cold for homes and offices. The project concentrates on innovative technologies of heat and cold storage, among others, by drawing maximum energy available at a given time from RES and distributing it according to the current demand of the building. The result will be systems that reduce the cost of heating and cooling buildings by drawing and distributing energy from RES in an optimal way.

ConnectPoint has entered into the competition with our Nexo Energy solution, which allows us to collect data from Smart Home devices and transmit them to service providers, e.g. heat, energy. This data can then be analysed, and supply optimised.

You can read more about the grant here.

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We wanted to share our vision of the future of manufacturing with visitors: aware of its processes thanks to data and analytics in real-time. At ConnectPoint, we believe that this awareness is the basis for a sustainable future.

You can read more about the Alley concept and other innovators on the Microsoft Poland blog: https://news.microsoft.com/pl-pl/2021/09/20/microsoft-wzmacnia-swoje-zaangazowanie-w-rozwoj-polskiej-doliny-cyfrowej-uruchamiajac-aleje-innowacji-szkolac-150-tys-osob-i-czyniac-postepy-w-budowie-polskiego-regionu-przetwarzania-danych/

We partner with Microsoft to provide our Smart RDM in Azure Cloud for powerful, real-time advanced analytics. You can learn more about it here: https://smartrdm.com/smart-rdm-and-microsoft/

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The speakers discussed the most critical changes and challenges faced by district heating companies in Poland. According to Marek, the future of heat is in the hands of customers who, thanks to digital tools, want to manage their heat consumption themselves: ” It will be the customers who decide how much heat they want to receive. Therefore, we are introducing extensive information systems that collect data from the substations to change the nature of their operation to generate savings. The next stage is to control the heat demand for each room in the building.”

For district heating companies, this means the need to digitalise as it becomes increasingly important to collect information from consumers. At ConnectPoint, we see a significant increase in the demand for data. They are necessary to answer critical questions for the companies’ future.

A complete summary of the debate can be read on the Kierunek Energetyka website in Polish: https://www.kierunekenergetyka.pl/konferencja,2191,85976.html

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