With the Internet of Things (IoT) transforming the ways in which sensor-generated data is gathered, evaluated and leveraged, various industries in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia are realizing the importance of analytics in enabling more efficient and competitive monetization strategies. By streamlining processes from design to delivery, the Saudi manufacturing industry is leading the charge of heightened interconnected machine-to-machine (M2M) communication. According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), Saudi Arabian IT spending in the manufacturing sector is expected to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.5% from 2013 to 2018. Dubbed as the Industrial Revolution 4.0, disruptive IoT technologies are poised to play an essential role in the Kingdom's manufacturing sector over the next five to 10 years. As intelligent cloud-based applications transmit and interpret data that allow factories to get smarter, business analytics will serve as the key enabler in collating data that optimizes overall production systems and processes. SAS, the leader in analytics, is sponsoring the Plant Maintenance and Reliability Congress at Sofitel The Corniche, Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, on March 9-10, 2016. As the summit's analytics partner, SAS aims to create an awareness on the importance of business intelligence and analytics in achieving an integrated, market-driven approach across the manufacturing industry. "Driven by the rise in data volumes and the emergence of analytics and business intelligence capabilities, we are in the next phase of the manufacturing sector's digitization. The first wave of these intelligent factories are using industrial machines that are connected and communicating with one another via sensors that collect and evaluate data," said Yigit Karabag, Information Management & Analytics Practice Manager, Middle East, Turkey & Africa at SAS. "This digital shift across different sectors, particularly in the manufacturing sector, is paving way for business analytics that are changing the way factories work. The manufacturing sector is one of the main contributors to Saudi Arabia's GDP and the Plant Maintenance & Reliability Congress aims to understand the market requirements, trends and challenges faced by the heads of operations and maintenance – the largest of those trends and challenges is IoT," he added. With the recent decline in crude oil prices forcing more Saudi businesses to improve productivity and innovation by adopting new technologies such as advanced analytics, an increase in IoT deployments - particularly in the Analytics of Things (AoT) arena - is boosting businesses' capacity to value and assess data to improve reliability and optimize operations. Given the sheer number and complexity of processing activities that influence manufacturing productivity in various industrial sectors, a more granular, data-led approach increases businesses' monetization capacity by offering more potential to diagnose and correct process flaws through advanced analytics. At the summit, SAS will highlight its Asset Performance Analytics, which accurately predict events that cause outages or degrade performances across machines. From batch data loads to streaming real-time IoT data, the SAS solution measures, analyses and evaluates sensor data to boost performance and productivity whilst reducing the risk of revenue loss. The Plant Maintenance & Reliability Congress will feature interactive panel and roundtable discussions as well as conference sessions and case studies. For more information about the event, please visit http://www.eurasiayan.com/pmrc_saudi_arabia.php. — SG
