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Executives in the process industries have been witness to many changes over the past year, including the collapse of both price and demand in many critical commodity markets. In industries where profitability is often based on high volume and low margins, increased variability in prices and final demand can have averse affects.

Aberdeen's news research, "Operational Excellence in the Process Industries: Staying Profitable through the Downturn" identifies how process manufacturers can respond and achieve best-in-class performance.

Key findings:

• Best-in-class process manufacturers are more than twice as likely as laggards to standardize optimization processes in manufacturing operations across the enterprise.
• Best-in-class process manufacturing executives are more than two times as likely to have real-time visibility into manufacturing operations as laggards.
• Best-in-class process manufacturers are nearly twice as likely as underperforming manufacturers to be focused on energy efficiency.

Recommendations:

• Companies must focus on using energy data in operational decision-making to optimize efficiency and profitability.
• Companies must provide role-based visibility and well-defined responsibility in case of an adverse event.
• Companies must use automated workflows to enable optimal decision-making in real time.
  
• Companies must provide interoperability between critical systems to gain visibility between different functional areas.

Valerie Valentine is senior editor for Information Management. You can follow her on Twitter at @va1va1entine or via email at valerie.valentine@sourcemedia.com.