Toronto Electricians and Electrical Contractors

At the end of every year, I make it a point to review our blog readership detail to see which topics you, our audience, find the most interesting. The Schneider Electric and APC blogs continue to be recognized in the marketplace as a great source of thought leadership and information on data center solutions ; perspectives from hundreds of global bloggers creates a rich platform for exchanging ideas. In 2019, four topics in particular stood out to our readers. My bet is that many of you will be able to glean solid insights from these trending topics for your own organization. 1. Sustainability Efforts Ramp Up with Renewables Blog posts that covered how to leverage renewable energy garnered a lot of attention. In fact, many colocation and service providers are moving quickly to implement renewables in order to drive down their energy costs. In particular, this blog features the new marketplace initiatives that are now influencing the growth of renewable energy systems. As you wou...

Ed Jarvis, Thought Leadership Manager for Power Systems, grew up in Minnesota and Colorado. “A writer at heart,” he loves traveling the world with his wife. He joined Schneider through an acquisition of the company he was working for in 2011. Since that day, Ed stayed with the company but left the U.S. to make a home in France. Natalia Pachón: How has your career evolved since the day you joined the company? Ed Jarvis: I was working for a much smaller company that was acquired by Schneider Electric. I began there as a Technical Writer on a product development team that made software for utility companies. Shortly after the acquisition, Schneider’s leadership team visited us in Fort Collins, Colorado. They had a series of interesting messages to share, including that within this multinational organization, “all things were possible,” including a strong internal mobility program. This was music to my ears because as much as I treasure the Colorado lifestyle, my wife and I love travel...

It’s a cold afternoon in Paris. On her way to the Charles de Gaulle airport is Aline Paulino, Human Resources Business Partner Director for Industrial Automation at Schneider Electric. Currently, she lives in France but her story with the company started back in September 2014 in her home country: Brazil. Natalia Pachón: How has your career evolved since the day you joined the company? Aline Paulino:  It has been a very interesting journey since I joined the company [as] I’ve been having great opportunities for my career. I joined as Human Resources Business Partner for Brazil, and after 7 or 8 months, I was invited by the regional leader for South America to have another hat as Talent Manager for the region. I accepted and I was glad of having this opportunity in less than a year in the company. I spent three years in the region, and I’ve always dreamed of having an international career. I have lived abroad before, in Dublin, but I was a student, I was not working in a com...

Digitization is about much more than just technology. It’s also about collaboration and people . If you already understand this, you’re off to a good start. As our Industrial Automation EVP Peter Herweck recently acknowledged , seeing a digitization project through to the end isn’t always so simple. One of the reasons for this is because it’s not just a matter of implementing technology. It involves organizational and structural changes, and if you don’t plan for them, it could fail. That’s why at Schneider Electric we’re focused on how we can help companies with these challenges as well providing technology solutions. This is part of our vision for the Schneider Electric Exchange, which has already shown success since it was launched in April 2019. We expect it will build into an even greater hub for innovation in years to come. How Exchange is helping meet the challenges of digitization A project needs to have the right people on board from the beginning in order to succeed. This...

As we near the end of 2019 (and, incredibly, the decade), it’s a good time to look back at the year and take stock of which topics most resonated with our readers in the commercial and industrial sector. In a nutshell, two topics dominated: industrial UPSs and industrial edge data centers. Our four most popular posts of the year all centered on industrial uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), covering topics including how to choose a UPS that best meets your needs and why they’re so important. At the same time, readers were also interested in industrial edge data centers and how they can help address applications including artificial intelligence (AI), augmented reality (AR) and video analytics while improving IT resiliency and reducing time to market. Industrial UPS topics resonate Interest in industrial UPSs underlies the reality that, more than ever, commercial and industrial businesses have come to rely on the availability of safe, reliable power to run their businesses. As ...

Schneider Go Green Schneider Go Green was a life-changing experience that started my career and I am so grateful for the opportunity the competition gave me. I wouldn’t be in the graduate program in United Kingdom, working in energy and sustainability, without participating in Schneider Go Green. It was an experience I will never forget! Where it all started Hi, my name is Rachel and I was part of the team ‘Charge it Up’ who represented the UK, in the Global Finals of Schneider Go Green 2019. My Go Green journey started back in January when my teammate, Adi and I came up with an idea to provide access to energy to an informal settlement in South Africa. After presenting our idea with fellow students for a University project, our course leader suggested we apply for the Go Green student contest. Little did I know then how our idea would grow and give me so many opportunities for a future in energy. Thanks to Steve Hall for setting us the challenge as part of MSc Sustainable Cities ...

Autonomous vehicles have become a de facto analogy for emerging technology. It’s easy to understand why driverless cars won’t be engineered like those meant for humans. Cue the comparison here. Traditional data center service models are meant for a centralized architecture. The edge relies on distributed architecture; they can’t be built, operated, maintained the same way. Edge computing brings more complexity to service delivery. With a lack of onsite staff, multiple sites and remote locations, manning every deployment with a database administrator, engineer, electrical expert and security guard will be too expensive. The customer needs a simple, integrated cost-effective solution, i.e. software. In fact, edge requires a big shift in hardware and operations . It will rely on software and digital services to enable IT in understaffed locations and drive down price. The edge vision of software and services is characterized by: the ability to connect any asset to pull relevant, acti...

People check into hotels these days with high expectations. Whether their stay is for business or pleasure, guests want to be able to control their room’s temperature, lighting, and curtains, create a variety of ambiences, and summon services, all with the convenience of a personal device or in-room tablet. Put another way, they are seeking comfort and contentment via a frictionless digital experience. And no matter what their experience is, they are likely to tell the world about it on social media, which can have a huge impact on a hotel’s business. Hoteliers are paying attention – and for good reason. Studies show that issues with guest rooms represent 42% of all hotel complaints and decrease loyalty by more than 11%. On the other hand, if a hotel can increase its review scores by just one point on a five-point scale, it can raise prices by 11.2% and still maintain the same occupancy or market share. Hotel operators know that earning five stars on Google can have as positive an i...

Integrated Power and Process Systems The benefits of integrated power and process systems on capital expenditure savings and on operational expenditure savings are very evident and have been acknowledged by engineering companies as well as by end users equally. Developing Human Capital Human Capital Management is defined as the process of acquiring, training, managing, retaining employees for them to contribute effectively in the processes of the organization. Developing Human Capital is central to most of oil & gas companies. Oil & gas companies roll out many initiatives for the overall development of the workforce that helps employees to keep up with the current technology as well as business and soft skills. In the past 10 years, companies have started to increase the average time and budget allocated for training per employee. Employee training strengthens the workforce and makes it easier for your company to promote internally. You have control over what your employees...

As the UN Climate Change Conference COP25 progresses in Madrid, there has never been greater recognition that Acting Now has become a global imperative to help protect our world and its people. Our planet is under pressure, from parts of the world’s oceans becoming depleted of oxygen, to the urgent need to negotiate more ambitious plans to limit global warming to 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement. We need to move from conceptualization to adaptation, mitigation and means of actualization at scale to negate the deep impacts we are already experiencing across land and sea, climate, energy and ecosystems. #TimeForAction is the United Nations’ global clarion call to raise individual and collective awareness, ambition, and action, for which we have seen our youth increasingly leading the way: ‘Youth have played a fantastic role throughout this year to raise awareness for the need for urgent Climate Action’ – Patricia Espinosa, UN Climate Change Executive Secretary during Youth...

There’s disruption all around us. Over the past three decades, the rise of high-speed internet, exponential growth of computational power, and ever-decreasing costs of data storage have drastically changed how we live, what we interact with, and how businesses operate. The democratization of data and technology provides easier access to things that we have never imagined. It helped organizations to push boundaries and disrupt the status quo. Not only are technology trends shaping business models, but ever-evolving behaviors and expectations from consumers are impacting organizations’ current practices. The advent of the Information Age has been transformative – industry after industry, ranging from law, media, and manufacturing have evolved value propositions, company missions, business models and operating practices to adapt to the paradigm shift. Traditionally, the Oil & Gas industry has been on the cutting edge of technology, rapidly adopting new technologies to enable optimal ...

Empowered to act like an owner A few years ago, my wife asked me: “Why are you so loyal to Schneider Electric?”. My answer to her was: “It is the same reason why I am loyal to you. We share the same core values.” One of the core values I’ve shared with Schneider Electric during my long career path is: being empowered to learn and taking charge of my career.  Looking back at my career path, I have been very privileged to work in 12 different positions, across different functions, business units, and organizations over 25 years . No two days within the 9000+ days I have been with Schneider Electric have been the same. Every day presents new challenges, new problems to solve, new people to meet and most importantly, new opportunities to learn and improve myself. Every assignment helped to broaden my knowledge in every aspect of the organization. And this is what makes Schneider Electric unique in my eyes. Throughout my 25-year career path, Being exposed to different parts of the b...