Talking about domain hierarchy, moreover managing domain structure can be a challenge. When it comes to data management, analysis and display, more often than not developers takes the classic road: tables, lists and charts are in charge of displaying your data.
Using one of the above techniques to display the structure of a domain while not impossible, can be very confusing and challenging to use and oversee as a user. Structure and hierarchy are best displayed visualized, for example as diagrams.
<h2>Developed and tested for a business user</h2>
This may sound contradicting, but a lot of software are made by engineers for engineers. It has great tools, cool solutions, and everything available what an engineer would require and consider awesome. But having the right tool for the right job means not to think as an engineer, when designing or testing a software.
Since day one as a software engineer, I think of myself as an end-user with the tools of making the changes happen. That was the leading idea behind the asset management tool, every button, every functionality was designed and placed the way we would see it comfortable during the everyday use.
<h3>Domain build from scratch</h3>
One company has departments, others has platforms, solar plants or windmill parks. The common ground is they are all organized in a unique structure, where some technical terms may be included, but eventually, they all are very specific to the given organization.
For example solar plants has multiple rows all built up from individual solar panels, but they can also be part of a higher hierarchy grouped by location. Each asset in this hierarchy has its own unique name, that tells nothing to an outsider, but gives a lot of information for the members of the company.
Fitting these structures and relations into a premade hierarchy with limited connections is not only hard but can make the asset hierarchy representation detached from reality.
<h3>Your assets, your connections as you know it</h3>
Our tool provides you with a flexible, unlimited configuration, so each and every asset will have its own, well-known and company-wide recognized name in the system. No need to learn a new structure, you can just build your own from the ground up.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone wp-image-483 size-full" src="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/114_Snapshot12picture.png" alt="" width="1009" height="724" srcset="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/114_Snapshot12picture.png 1009w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/114_Snapshot12picture-300x215.png 300w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/114_Snapshot12picture-768x551.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 1009px) 100vw, 1009px" />
Eventually, the whole structure will be represented as-is, the exact same way the assets are grouped and linked together in reality.
This flexibility provides great opportunities not only in managing the assets and the asset structure itself, but also in binding actions to a certain asset on any level.
<h3>Do you want to know more about our new SaaS platform?</h3>
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/cuurios" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-redactor-span="true">Follow us on LinkedIn</a> to stay tuned or reach out to <a href="mailto:LdeGraaf@Cuurios.com" data-redactor-span="true">Leen de Graaf</a> today for more information!

Snapshot 1.2: Customized domain structure for maximized efficiency

Our objective here at Cuurios is to provide the tools that will digitalize and streamline industrial operations, foster collaboration and ultimately unleash an industry data revolution. One of the very valuable and logical use cases for our software platform is the ability to manage, assign and track production related actions. These actions are (in many organizations) currently not managed in a standardized way and I’m sure most of you recognize all these different action lists in various Excel files on shared drives you’re supposed to keep an eye on…
<h2>What is it that we do differently?</h2>
Exactly that is what motivated us to do it differently, starting by listening carefully to the key criteria we collected during user interviews and conversations with clients. The resulting key criteria we sketched on the board at that time were the following:
<ul>
<li>User friendly, intuitive to use</li>
<li>Performant, also on remote connections with limited bandwidth</li>
<li>Flexible, customizable and scalable</li>
<li>Asset centred, industry ready</li>
<li>Data-driven</li>
</ul>
We want our users to like working with our tools by motivation and not because they are forced to. This simply means we put user experience as our top priority. The simplest things can make a huge difference when it comes to usability. During the first trials with users, we’ve put all our effort in it to make sure every button, entry field or other user interaction in the tool is logical and intuitive for them (and not just for us as product owners 🙂 ).
<h3>What does it imply if we put user experience first?</h3>
The tool is optimized for use in limited bandwidth environments, resulting in a very snappy and performant UI, even in remote locations. This is the result of a strong focus on the optimization of the application data structure and architecture as well as the optimization of all our data calls (only load the data you need seems a simple philosophy, but unfortunately not the reality in many applications).
Flexible because we understand not every company is the same. So if a client is used to name the priority of an action ‘severity’, they can configure it to be labelled as severity. And if you want three simple straightforward severity levels to select from or five or ten, it’s your choice. If you want an action to be constructed of five simple properties or twenty, all fine! We basically allow you to fully customize the template of your actions and their lifecycle (workflow) to fit your case.
<h3>Why is it such a good fit for asset-rich industries?</h3>
Asset centred because we focus on solutions for asset rich environments. Actions in these environments are simply always related to assets. A plant, a unit, a pump a vessel, you name it. Your asset structure is represented in the solution by importing the asset hierarchy and definition from your asset management tool. This allows to link the actions to the asset it concerns. It also allows you to set the user permissions linked to the assets.
And the best of all? You can fully automate the creation and the state (i.e. from open to closed) based on your streaming production and asset data. Translating your data to meaningful insights using simple rules, thresholds and complex algorithms has never been so easy. You’ll never miss any of these insights as we provide powerful features, to track, assign and manage these actionable insights.
Want to learn more? We’re happy to demonstrate our product: please leave us a message at: <a href="mailto:info@Cuurios.com" data-redactor-span="true">info@Cuurios.com</a> and we’ll contact you to set up a demo!

Snapshot 1.1 – Action management re-invented: foster collaboration and streamline operations!

We started Cuurios because we are convinced that data and information in leading organizations will be used to optimize the processes. We successfully verified our vision running many successful projects at various customers in different industries. We enabled our enterprise customers to automatically translate their data into concrete actions. Replacing an entire chain of Excel sheets, e-mail messages and text messages. The resulting efficiency gain and positive performance impact surprises our clients again and again.
“The digital-tool developed by Cuurios allows us to further streamline our daily operational tasks. I very much appreciate the flexibility, fast response and easy going cooperation with Cuurios.”
The positive impact of these solutions made us realize we had to push through. The lessons learnt at our launching customers inspired us to design and develop the leading SaaS platform in the market of asset intensive enterprises. The sophisticated data to action solution accelerates customers’ performance by an order of magnitude. We enable you to learn from yesterday, know what&#8217;s happening today and predict tomorrow.
<h2>So, how do we do that?</h2>
Engineers are enabled to develop their own algorithms and workflows and configure standard elements as they see fit. The analytics technology used to get insights from your data does not per se need to be complex (i.e. AI or learning algorithms), the trick is to select the right technology for your particular use case! We’ve seen that analytics initiatives resulting in meaningful actions, well embedded in the regular daily work process has a much bigger chance of success compared to yet another fancy dashboard. This has already allowed our customers to avoid multiple production stops, by making smarter use of existing assets and production data.
<h3>Absolute control</h3>
We know the feeling: trying to fit a square peg in a round hole – the asset structure and hierarchy of companies cannot be simplified and generalized without compromises. Instead of forcing engineers to somehow adjust their already existing domain representation to a prefixed system, our tool allows complete control over hierarchy, connections and structures, which allows users to eventually have the perfect representation of a domain with no compromises. All that with a graphic display, to be able to overview and edit in a fast and convenient manner.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-497" src="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/85_AssetAndWorkflow-300x130.png" alt="" width="300" height="130" srcset="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/85_AssetAndWorkflow-300x130.png 300w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/85_AssetAndWorkflow-1024x443.png 1024w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/85_AssetAndWorkflow-768x333.png 768w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/85_AssetAndWorkflow.png 1141w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
The &#8216;brain&#8217; behind the asset structure (left) and unique, customizable workflows (right)
<h3>Utter flexibility</h3>
Utilizing these assets in digitalized workflows takes the daily work to a next level, and how it is used, it is up to the end-user. Engineers are free to build action management tools or any other templates necessary to minimize the daily workload and automate processes with no limitations.
Templates and workflows built from scratch allows every company to have their own, unique way of work, not having to get in line and standardize their already existing and perfectly functional ways.
<h3>The tip of the iceberg…</h3>
Managing assets, actions, inhibitions, monitoring production, automating processes, turning all those excel sheets into a functional, dynamic, easy to use tool that provides insight, access and complete control – and so much more without compromises.  This is not just a product, not yet another tool that promises the moon and eventually cannot even provide one fading star.
This is a SaaS platform solution in the making, with the users in mind, with care and honestly: love. The Cuurios-team nurtured every piece of it, raised it, criticized it, took it apart to put it back together better, shaped and re-shaped it, until the moment when it wasn’t just done, but it was WOW.
This journey started when Cuurios was born, and now it is time we share our experience and results. We cannot promise to write about it in an objective manner (because seriously, have you ever seen a proud parent not gushing about their child?), but we can promise not to overpromise, and while being proud and sharing the proud moments, we will be transparent about our challenges and our own growth during this incredible, ongoing journey.
<h3>Stay tuned!</h3>
If you can forgive us for not being always objective, if you don&#8217;t mind developers gushing and cheering about their own work and how cool it is, but mainly if you want to be part of our journey while building a one-of-a-kind SaaS platform for asset intensive industries &#8211; <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/cuurios" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-redactor-span="true">follow us on Linkedin</a> and we will shed light on all the little details, professional tricks, outstanding end-user possibilities as well as our challenges and obstacles along the way.
Already want more? Learn more about domain representation from <a href="https://cuurios.com/en/blog/52/work-as-youre-used-to-tailor-made-domain-representation-with-graphs" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-redactor-span="true">our previous article</a>.
&#8212;&#8211;
*Featured image: <a href="https://www.freepik.com/psd/mockup" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-redactor-span="true">Mockup created by freepik</a>

Snapshot 1.0: introducing the SaaS platform to accelerate your asset performance, powered by Cuurios

One of the common issues we face when developing applications for industrial customers, is the issue of accurately representing their domain.
A domain is the set of assets, equipment, departments, systems, that make up the whole of a company’s operations. Organizations usually have fine grained definitions of who should be responsible for managing a specific asset, which department resupplies systems, etc.
A software system should integrate with an organization structure and enable its operations. More often than not, they achieve the opposite, requiring organizations to fit their processes and structure inside their own rigid asset structure.
While promoting standardization, this approach stifles organizational innovations. It leads to faulty and incomplete domain representation, as assets are not recorded as they are, but as fit the system, or not recorded at all. In the end, many systems end up being hacked by system-integrators or in-house teams to make them fit, or a custom solution is being developed.
Very often these limitations are driven by technological limitations, SQL databases (still the norm for most industrial applications) requiring a rigid structure to be performant.
<h2>Graphs</h2>
We think that domains can best be described using graphs. A graph is a representation of information using node (vertices) and links (edges).
The following example should help to shed some light on the concept, and explain why we think it is such a great fit for representing domains:
<ul>
<li>Company A operates a small plant.</li>
<li>The plant has systems, composed of equipment or sub-systems. An equipment or a sub-system can be shared by multiple parent-systems.</li>
<li>At the same time, each equipment is linked to 2 departments, the maintenance department, and the production department.</li>
<li>Each equipment also has supervisor, a specific person, and a back-up supervisor pool, a pool of people that can be called up if the supervisor is unavailable.</li>
</ul>
Now you can see how this would start to be very complex when designed in the traditional fashion, leading to complex and inflexible implementations.
Now look at how we could implement this using a graph:
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-523" src="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/63_DomainGraphExample2-252x300.png" alt="" width="252" height="300" srcset="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/63_DomainGraphExample2-252x300.png 252w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/63_DomainGraphExample2.png 650w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 252px) 100vw, 252px" />
Suddenly your complex domain can be organized in a nice, coherent way, all relationships being represented exactly the way they are in reality. There is no limit as to how you should configure your operations, register your assets, organize your teams.
Of course, graphs have existed for a long time. They just have been notoriously difficult to implement in traditional SQL technologies as such. They are mostly used in the design phase of a traditional implementation. They describe the rigid tables and relationships that are then hard coded in the database structure.
<h3>What has changed? Graph databases</h3>
A graph database is a database that has been specially designed and implemented to deal with graphs. They can traverse graphs to look for relationship insanely fast and are faster than a traditional tailored-made SQL model would.
In a graph database you define your graph as a graph. Tables, relationships, everything is configurable at runtime, there is no rigid structure. The graph evolves together with your domain.
A graph database comes with its own language for querying and managing graphs directly. Developers do not have to worry about implementing the graph logic. Application managers do not have to worry about the maintaining integrity. The database takes care of it all.
Graph database technology is now mature enough to be deployed as support for industrial grade applications, and alleviate the limitations created by the SQL databases technology. Products such as SAP OrientDB or Neo4J have been around for a while, are battle tested and widely used.
At Cuurios, we think it is time for the industry to embrace graphs. Let your applications represent your business, and not the other way around!!
<h3>STAY TUNED!</h3>
Cuurios is currently developing its brand-new software platform according to these principles.
It will combine this new representation of operational domains, with self-service algorithms and hands-on data processing, to create a platform that works for the engineers and the operators!
But more on this next time!

Work as you’re used to: tailor-made domain representation with graphs

Every company works with data. Productivity, prices, stock, you name it, anything that makes its way to the next report and helps you take the next step – just numbers. Chosen the right strategy, you can make these numbers work for you.
<h2>A case from the trenches</h2>
We dedicated the previous blog post to the value and importance of your data. You might already be intrigued to imagine how those numbers can save you a lot of work and even make your company more successful or “just” simplify your decision making process. It’s time to do something about it.
But then what? It might be very tempting to go for the new and shiny, to start an Artificial Intelligence (AI) project because that is the future and you are afraid to miss the boat. But AI requires a very high digitization maturity and work best on very specific use cases.
The technology has some known drawbacks, requiring large amount of (mostly labeled) data. It also lacks in so important auditability, a real and valid concern for many business leaders.
Focusing on this far-way horizon may lead you to over-reaching, over-spending, and might actually backfire. Lacking in tangible results to show, it could reduce the willingness to invest in data and data technologies. You will miss the low hanging fruit that will add value to your business and will help champion data in your organization.
Through a real use case at one of our customers, I will try to explain how we managed to integrate data and create value by integrating a use case that mattered.
<h3>The use case</h3>
This customer is responsible for the operations of multiple industrial sites, each producing 24/7. At the beginning of the day, engineers gather data, calculate, and analyze the shortfalls in production from the day before. What was the reason, was it planned, what can be done about it, will this impact our overall production, etc.
This data needs to be revised and approved by the operational and reporting team and reported officially to management.
Until very recently, they would extract data from their process data historian, process it through an excel sheet and pretty much run the process by hand using the Microsoft Excel.
A repetitive and error prone process, with little value in the data wrangling. A perfect candidate for automation!
To support this customer, we deployed a solution that would:
<ul>
<li>Fetch the data automatically from the OSIsoft PI data historian</li>
<li>Run an algorithm to detect production shortfalls and faulty input. The algorithm tries as well to infer the cause of the production shortfalls from previous related cases.</li>
<li>Present the results in a Web UI, including history and raw data</li>
<li>Present the detected production shortfalls to engineers and operators for analysis and validation</li>
<li>Extract the results into the right format for exporting to the reporting system</li>
</ul>
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-530" src="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/52_CuuriosShortfallv2-300x161.png" alt="" width="300" height="161" srcset="https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/52_CuuriosShortfallv2-300x161.png 300w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/52_CuuriosShortfallv2-1024x551.png 1024w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/52_CuuriosShortfallv2-768x413.png 768w, https://cuurios.test.ccid.nl/content/uploads/2022/04/52_CuuriosShortfallv2.png 1227w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Now, engineers and operators can come to the office in the morning, and the data about the production shortfalls will be ready for them to analyze and validate, resulting in:
<ul>
<li>Less work intensive process</li>
<li>Better accuracy</li>
<li>Easier analysis based on charts</li>
<li>History of production shortfalls under your fingertip</li>
</ul>
Since the first version, we keep refining the process, adding new algorithms and new mechanisms to streamline even more of their operations (For example, producing production reports automatically from the production data)
<h3>What can we take from this?</h3>
The algorithm for analyzing production data is not based on machine learning or fancy AI techniques. It is a regular algorithm designed together with the process engineers.
But it delivers exactly what the customer wants and provides tremendous value to the business.
While running complex machine learning algorithms might add some value in the future, focusing on them right from the start would have diverted us from what we really wanted to achieve:
<h3>Providing the business with value!</h3>

Do you recognize the value of your data?

Nowadays data is everywhere. It is the hot topic of the moment, for businesses and in the general public. There are heated debates in politics about “Data”, data wars, and even a new science entirely dedicated to data!
When it comes to data, you might be wondering, should you build an enterprise architecture with data as your starting point (data-centric)? Or build a data structure around the existing landscape (data-driven)? What about data lakes? Do we actually have any data?
Well, tackling data is highly dependent on the specific configuration of your organization history, business, and IT landscape.
At Cuurios we believe that Data should be CENTRAL to your organization. Gathering, managing, and acting on your data is your core business. But there are no one-size-fit-all solutions. Data is a mindset, the most important is to just do it, however small the first steps might be.
In this blog post I am giving some insights on how we see Data at Cuurios and sketching the first steps towards data proficiency!
<h2>DATA</h2>
It sometimes feels like data is something new, something very hot, the core of the 21st century technological battlefield. But data has been there for a long time! Measuring, gathering and analyzing data is at the core of the scientific and industrial revolution. Without Galileo gathering data on the moons of Jupiter with his telescope, there would have been no proof that Copernicus was right, and we might still be thinking that the earth is at the center of the universe.
Data is not a thing, a disincarnated entity that exists for and of itself. Data is grounded in reality, it is information that represents assets, people, events in the real world. Data is what makes large-scale organizations possible. Without data, how would you know what the state of you inventory is without having to recount every time? What the state of a critical asset is without having to look at it?
The first form of writing ever discovered, the Sumerian tablets [1], were accounting records of production and exchanges of goods, i.e. data.
What has changed to make data the focus of a new gold rush?
<ul>
<li>Storage capacity has increased exponentially. When a Sumerian scribe needed hours to imprint a clay table, we can now record terabytes of data for very little cost.</li>
<li>The internet (as in the complete networking infrastructure). No need to have people do the measurements and record the data themselves. Everything is be automated.</li>
<li>Advanced in computer power has made the application of advanced AI algorithms cheap and rewarding.</li>
</ul>
This list describes techniques to store, manipulate, and analyze data.
What it does not describe, is a change in the nature of data. People tend to concentrate on the new hype, assimilate data with data science, and equate analysis with machine learning. This is a very narrow view of what data is and limits its usefulness to a few very advanced use cases.
Because first and foremost, data is information, information about your business, its customers, its assets, its financial state. It represents the tangible and is often the only thing you have to steer large complex organizations.
We think that data should play a core role in every organization, be CENTRAL to decision making and action taking. Without data, any decision taken is an educated guess.
<h3>THERE IS MORE DATA AROUND THAN YOU THINK</h3>
In practice, we often encounter organizations that claim not to have any data. Because they don’t have a data lake.
The first thing they have on their data roadmap then, is to create one. But really, a data lake is just a big database. It won’t tell you what to do with your data. In our experience, many organizations, after having spent an incredible amount of time and budget on creating a data lake, are stuck. They don’t know what to do with it.
Because your data is about your business, not technology, not algorithms.
What we usually see is that organizations already have data, very often plenty of data, scattered around, in custom made applications, asset databases, excel sheets. Because you can’t function without data.
What they lack is an approach, a concrete process to manage data, to embed it in its day to day operations. The data processing, the algorithms, should come in support of operations.
Making sure data is part of your operations day to day business, that is being data-centric.
In order to do that, you need to reverse the data analysis process, look at your data from a business perspective:
<ul>
<li>What are my most important use cases, processes, assets?</li>
<li>Which data do I have about them? Where can it be found, in which format? Do I need more of it?</li>
<li>How can we automate this specific use case? Which algorithm can be used?</li>
</ul>
At Cuurios, we have extensive experience working in the industrial sector. In most Industrial settings, processes will already be described. They will be backed by data for real-time monitoring, stored in a historian. Optimization and analysis algorithms are known.
The actual running of the algorithms, the analysis of the data and the generation of advices is traditionally a step performed by engineers, in Excel, Matlab or others. Tools great for exploration and scientific inquiry, but not made for automation.
For most companies, there is tremendous value to be added by connecting data sources to each other and automating their analysis. Actions can be defined and set-out quicker, with a better response to issues and a higher efficiency.
[1] <a href="https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/a-stray-sumerian-tablet-unravelling-the-story-behind-cambridge-university-librarys-oldest-written" data-redactor-span="true">https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/a-stray-sumerian-tablet-unravelling-the-story-behind-cambridge-university-librarys-oldest-written</a>

Data is about your business, not just technology and algorithms

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Clients tell us that implementing our product feels like their data-congested brain finally gets the much-needed neurological wiring that prompts action. Finally, you understand what is happening. Finally, you know what to do next. Finally, you can act confidently.

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