Industrial Data Types

Industrial data falls into three overlapping categories, each serving distinct but interconnected purposes. Operational data (temperature, pressure, flow rates, equipment status) drives real-time process control—millisecond decisions automated by SCADA and PLCs. This is the nervous system of the plant: tight feedback loops keep production within safe, efficient bounds. Environmental data (emissions, water use, waste generation, air quality) enables compliance reporting and sustainability tracking. Historically manual and infrequent, modern systems now capture this continuously—critical for carbon accounting and ESG disclosure. Financial data (energy costs, labor hours, material prices, maintenance expenses) links physical operations to business performance. The magic happens when you integrate all three: Combine energy consumption (operational) with emissions factors (environmental) and electricity prices (financial) to optimize production schedules for minimum cost and carbon. Data granularity matters: Annual totals obscure optimization opportunities. Hourly data reveals time-of-use patterns. Real-time data enables dynamic control. The trend is toward higher frequency, finer resolution, and tighter integration—powered by cheap sensors, cloud storage, and ML algorithms that extract signal from noise.