Australia’s industrial future depends on digitalisation and AI

“Data capture time across 200 wind turbines dropped from 10 minutes to just one second, enabling performance optimisation across the network. In addition to immediate efficiency gains, this approach is helping AGL connect insights across traditional and renewable power generation assets, ensuring reliable power to communities across the continent.”

Sharing insights within teams breaks down silos, but when information and insights can be shared beyond organisational boundaries, everyone stands to benefit. Rio Tinto, for example, brought together operational information and shared it with its partners, suppliers, and customers.

Building digital ecosystems

“Data on its own is noise. Data, in context, is information,” says Paul Rushton, manager of digital delivery at Rio Tinto.

The mining giant’s ecosystem approach helped cut configuration time, reducing downtime and standardising control systems across all mine sites.

Greater insight has also enabled more responsible mining practices, from cutting energy use to reducing materials waste.

For decades, critical operations data remained trapped in silos. Valuable insights stayed locked within departments or individual plants.

Today’s cloud platforms and hybrid networks have evolved from storage solutions to true collaboration and insight hubs. Take AGL Energy, one of Australia’s leading integrated energy companies.

Collaborative cloud platforms

AGL faced massive growth challenges, expanding its generation capacity from 300 MW to over 10,000 MW between 2012 and 2021. By centralising time-series data from every generation site, AGL built a data-driven culture that transcends traditional operational boundaries.

Carlos Urbano, vice president industry at Schneider Electric, says companies are increasingly thinking bigger.

“A global leader in industrial software, AVEVA is working with other industry leaders to lay the foundations of what it calls the ‘digital ecosystem’ – an interdependent network of shared information and insights that spans not just a team or an organisation, but also encompasses partners, suppliers, and even competitors in one interconnected web,” says Urbano.

“Why are they doing this? Because the benefits of communality can unlock transformative ways of working, something we call radical collaboration, leading to radical results in industry.”

Urbano says this shift is redefining how businesses approach efficiency, resilience, and sustainability. Companies that embrace digital ecosystems can respond faster to market changes, optimise resources, and unlock new levels of productivity.

“We’re seeing a move towards integrated, data-driven decision-making that allows companies to be more agile in the face of disruption,” he says. “Connecting insights across the value chain helps organisations uncover efficiencies that were previously hidden.”

This kind of intelligence sharing enables industries to break free from traditional limitations. “Radical collaboration is what will drive the next era of industrial transformation,” Urbano says.

“It’s not just about technology – it’s about changing the way entire industries operate.”

An example of a company using digital solutions to drive efficiency is Borg Manufacturing, Urbano says.

“However, many other well-known companies such as Arnott’s, makers of the iconic Tim Tams and other national treasures, have seen significant gains by using AVEVA’s digital solutions.”

AI is also proving to be a trusted advisor for organisations, surfacing actionable insights that help teams make smarter decisions.

Industrial AI efficiency

At Talison Lithium, near Perth, leaders are taking a collaborative approach to the energy transition. Facing complex processes across multiple plants, Talison needed to transform how it collected and used operational data.

By sharing engineering and operational information in the cloud and enriching it with AI and machine learning drawn from the mine’s digital twin, Talison built an accessible, real-time database that everyone in the team can use.

“We can now accurately identify downtime and its causes in each of our plants,” says Chris Milford, chief information officer at Talison Lithium. “Maintainers and operators use this data to improve efficiency.”

The results speak volumes: analysis processing is now 50 per cent faster, and improved end-of-month reconciliation has boosted profitability at all sites.

Australia’s geographic scale and distributed workforce make advanced collaboration platforms particularly valuable, says Milford.

At their core, these platforms enable teams to simultaneously visualise, analyse, and interact with the same operational information and insights.

Connected innovation

Borg Manufacturing, Australia’s leading melamine maker, needed to improve product quality while meeting new decarbonisation operating targets. The team implemented a digital manufacturing execution system, known as an MES, to optimise their factory processes and measure energy use.

As a result of this increased visibility, the factory achieved a 400 per cent boost in efficiency, raising production to 7500 items every day. When the team extended this digital twin-based system to their warehousing, they cut waste from 5 per cent to 2 per cent and boosted packaging line efficiency by 150 per cent.

The team now collaborates seamlessly across the entire manufacturing process, sharing information, identifying new incremental gains, and continually reducing the carbon footprint of the goods produced and shipped to consumers across Australia.

Urbano believes this kind of connectivity will be essential as industries face increasing regulatory pressure and sustainability challenges.

“Companies that embrace digital ecosystems and radical collaboration will be the ones leading the charge into the future,” says Urbano.

“These technologies are no longer just about efficiency – they’re about survival and leadership in a rapidly changing world.”

To learn more, please visit Schneider Electric.