Air Liquide China unveils Digital Performance Center: The next step for the digital operating model

To support the ever-changing requirements of the industries it serves, Air Liquide China is leveraging the latest innovations in digital technologies to adopt a more predictive, proactive and forward-looking operating model. A key milestone in this journey is the debut of its new Digital Performance Center (DPC) located in the Air Liquide Shanghai Research and Technology Center.

On September 15, Air Liquide China held an Opening Ceremony to celebrate the launch of the new center. The event attracted nearly 80 guests, including large industrial customers and Air Liquide executives led by Francois Abrial, Shanghai Hub Executive Vice President and Marcelo Fioranelli, China Cluster Vice President.

In his welcome speech, Chris Clark, Air Liquide China Large Industries Vice President commented: "Moving to a more digital and data-driven operating model is key to business success in the increasingly challenging market. The new DPC marks our first major step in this transformation. As a central hub of our daily operations, the DPC will continue improving our operational efficiency, anticipate and prevent operational issues, and significantly enhance the overall customer experience."

The new center enables Air Liquide China's central operations team to remotely control the daily operations of selected plants. Ultimately, the center will actively control all Air Liquide China large plants, with pro-active decision making based on information from all the data and tools available.

The DPC is a part of Air Liquide's ambitious "Smart Innovative Operation" project, or “Qianzhan” (前瞻）in Chinese, which also includes other technical upgrades to Air Liquide's facilities and the implementation of  big data and digital tools. The project was presented to the Sino-French Industrial Strategic Alliance as "Made in China 2025" and the French "Industrie du futur" joint demonstration last March.