New Honeywell Services Business

More news (belatedly) from the ARC Forum. Honeywell announced February 7 that it has formed a new business focused on providing advanced open software and services to the process industries. This solution integrates the open connectivity and platform capability of its Matrikon acquisition with its applications and solutions business. Targeted to customers in the mining, chemical, petrochemical, refining, oil & gas and power sectors, it enables deployment of enterprise-wide solutions across their process infrastructure to better control and optimize their manufacturing footprint, better extract information and to make faster and smarter decisions that can transform their business.

“Process companies are increasingly demanding solutions that can work with any control system or application seamlessly across the enterprise,” said Ian Brown, vice president, Advanced Solutions. “With Matrikon’s track record for open connectivity, agility and innovation and Honeywell’s unparalleled lifecycle protection and reputation for project execution and products, customers can now get best-in-class solutions available, matched by industry-beating delivery, consulting and support. We are dedicated to helping our customers get the right information, in the right place, and at the right time whether in the plant, across the enterprise, from the cloud or as smart mobile applications.”

The Advanced Solutions portfolio, which includes offerings such as UniSim, Profit Suite, Uniformance PHD and Matrikon, is a part of Honeywell Process Solutions. According to the company, "This new business area will respond to the need for technology and expertise to turn data into information, information into analysis, analysis to actions, and actions to measurable results."

Honeywell’s Advanced Solutions business targets critical business challenges such as:
o Accurate material and energy usage monitoring and tracking
o Reducing production losses
o Improving control of inventory levels
o Providing on time product delivery (our customers’ customers)
o Better visualization of information and collaboration within the organization
o Improving business agility
o Meeting regulatory compliance
o Achieving predictable total cost of ownership and lifecycle support
o Mitigating skills loss and reduced work force
o Leveraging expertise remotely
o Embedding process expertise into solutions
o Reducing maintenance expenditures
o Long term realization of return on investment

Honeywell also announced these changes regarding the Matrikon acquisition. MatrikonOPC will be spun out of the Matrikon business and run independently. "This independence is very important to their business model as they continue to provide open connectivity solutions to Honeywell competitors," continued the press release. Matrikon will no longer be a business unit within HPS-- it will be fully integrated into the new Advanced Solutions business (excluding MatrikonOPC). Matrikon products will continue to carry the Matrikon name.

Honeywell Completes Acquisition of Matrikon

Honeywell announced June 28 it has completed the acquisition of Matrikon for approximately $139 million USD (approximately $144 million CAD). Matrikon will be integrated with the Advanced Solutions business of Honeywell Process Solutions (HPS). Matrikon's open connectivity in process control business, MatrikonOPC, will operate as a separate business entity within HPS.

"The Matrikon brands are outstanding additions to our technology portfolio," said Norm Gilsdorf, president of HPS, a business within Honeywell's Automation and Control Solutions group. "Combining our experienced teams and products will enable us to create stronger, enterprise-wide solutions that improve business performance for respective customers. In addition, the deal provides significant opportunity to grow within our existing customer bases in both mature and emerging markets around the world."

Based in Edmonton, Canada, Matrikon specializes in technology to manage production, optimize operations and monitor assets at industrial plants including oil and gas, refining, energy, power and mining companies. According to the release, Matrikon and HPS' products are highly complementary, specifically in the areas of asset management, production management, operations optimization, plant cyber security and data collection and visualization. In addition, Honeywell supports MatrikonOPC's commitment to vendor neutral open connectivity in process control (OPC), leading new technology development and helping people adopt open standards based solutions.

In an exclusive interview, Gilsdorf told me that the acquisition both gives HPS greater penetration within its current customer base while also providing entre into potentially new businesses. "Matrikon have customers where we're either not as strong or even not in, for example upstream, offshore or wellhead. It is also strong in mining and quite a bit of strength in asset management of heavy equipment in mines. It further has strength working with NERC-CIP in the utility industry." When Gilsdorf was running the UOP business for Honeywell prior to coming to HPS, he was interested in Matrikon. "At UOP, we were interested in their remote monitoring capability," he added.

Running MatrikonOPC as a separate business unit is not unusual within Honeywell, citing Tridium as an example. "We want it to be successful and grow," Gilsdorf added.

I asked about his UOP experience with the technology and engineering division of Honeywell Specialty Chemicals. He replied that there is a lot of personnel movement between the two companies. "Honeywell likes to do things like this," Gilsdorf said. He then referred to the recent announcement of the agreement between Honeywell and Shah Gas Development Project of the Abu Dhabi Gas Development Co. Ltd. which reflects the One Honeywell approach of the company.

In this project, Honeywell will provide Experion Process Knowledge Systems and Safety Manager technologies. These can be integrated to give personnel a complete view of process and safety information across the site. In addition to this core system, Honeywell will design, engineer and implement a broad array of new technologies and advanced applications that will help the plant operate as efficiently as possible from the first day of production. The project will include OneWireless networking to track key personnel and assets during both construction and operational phases. Operations staff will be equipped with wireless gas detectors that will transmit alerts when dangerous gases are detected.