• Data Validation & Gross Error Detection: The software checks incoming data for outliers or impossible values and flags or replaces them. For example, if a flowmeter is reading negative or far outside expected ranges, Sigmafine will detect it and prevent it from skewing the balance. 

• Model-Based Data Reconciliation: Sigmafine Express enforces conservation laws (mass, energy) across your process model. It will adjust measured values within their uncertainty ranges to satisfy balance equations, effectively “smoothing out” errors. This yields a single, coherent set of data that reflects all inputs and outputs consistently. In a refinery setting, for instance, the reconciled data ensures that total crude in equals products out plus losses – pinpointing any hidden losses or measurement biases. 

• Data Conditioning: Beyond reconciliation, Sigmafine Express can perform data conditioning, which involves cleansing and preparing data for use in other systems. This can include filtering noise, calculating additional context (like energy content, standardizing units), and providing data quality indicators. Operators and analysts get data that is not only balanced but also enriched with quality flags and ready for analytics or reporting. 

These capabilities provide the foundation for a range of critical industrial applications. Sigmafine Express supports use cases such as mass and energy balances, production accounting, yield accounting, utility and fuel consumption tracking, loss tracking, metallurgical accounting in mining, emissions monitoring, and more. Essentially, any scenario where you need to reconcile inputs and outputs or validate process data can benefit from Sigmafine’s engine. By catching sensor errors and process inefficiencies early, engineers can trust the data they use for optimizations or reporting, leading to more efficient and safer operations. 

Minimal Infrastructure, Seamless Integration 

One of the standout benefits of Sigmafine Express is how little infrastructure is required on the client side. Because it’s delivered via the AVEVA Connect cloud, you don’t need to provision local servers or high-end workstations to run data reconciliation algorithms. The heavy lifting (computational crunching of reconciliation models) happens on Pimsoft’s managed cloud infrastructure. Users access Sigmafine Express through a web interface – for example, Sigmafine Hub – which is part of the cloud service, which means authorized users can set up models, monitor reconciliation runs, and view results using just a browser, from anywhere. 

Integration is designed to be plug-and-play with existing data sources. All data transfers occur via the AVEVA Connect Community mechanism – meaning data sharing is secure and role-based. Only authorized users (with proper credentials in the AVEVA Connect tenant) can see or interact with the data and results, addressing IT concerns about security. 

From a system integrator’s perspective, this ease of integration is gold. It allows them to add advanced data reconciliation functionality to a client’s digital architecture without weeks of installing software or custom coding. For the client’s IT department, the cloud approach reduces the maintenance burden – no new servers to maintain, no database patches, and far less impact on the network. Sigmafine Express essentially outsources the computational infrastructure to Pimsoft’s cloud. This was particularly valuable in scenarios like joint ventures or multi-site operations where data needs to be shared in a controlled way. A good example is when a foreign stakeholder or remote experts need access to certain validated data: instead of setting up complex VPNs and replicating databases, authorized users can simply log into AVEVA Connect and access the Sigmafine results from anywhere in the world. 

Real-Time Insights for Operations 

Because it runs in the cloud, Sigmafine Express can be scheduled to execute reconciliation as frequently as needed – even continuously or in near real-time for certain balances. This means operational staff get up-to-date information. For example, in a power plant steam network, Sigmafine Express can reconcile steam flows and pressures every hour, providing an updated view of the energy balance across boilers and turbines. If a sensor drifts or a section of the plant is not performing as expected, the reconciled data and associated KPIs will make it evident. Engineers might see, for instance, a drop in overall efficiency or an unexplained loss in a particular circuit, prompting investigation. 

In complex facilities like petrochemical plants or oil refineries, real-time or daily reconciliation helps maintain optimal performance. It can feed into digital twins, predictive maintenance, or advanced process control systems by supplying them with cleaner, more reliable data. For a data management engineer, this capability is transformative: instead of manually scrubbing data in spreadsheets, they can rely on Sigmafine Express to automatically validate and correct the data stream, freeing their time to analyze results and implement improvements. 

Moreover, results from Sigmafine Express are accessible to other applications through AVEVA Connect. For instance, reconciled data can be visualized in AVEVA PI Vision dashboards or fed into reporting tools. This interconnectivity means Sigmafine Express isn’t a silo – it becomes an integral part of the plant’s digital ecosystem, enhancing the value of existing data and tools. 

Industry Applications and Use Cases 

Sigmafine Express is designed to be industry-agnostic, applicable anywhere you have a balance to close or data to validate. Some high-impact applications include: 

• Oil & Gas (Upstream and Downstream): Balance oil and gas production volumes, allocate production from multiple wells to the correct fields or owners, perform refinery-wide mass balances to detect losses (fuel, flare, etc.), and reconcile tank inventory data for accurate custody transfer and production accounting. 

• Chemicals & Petrochemicals: Reconcile multi-step process plant data (e.g. an ethylene cracker and polymer units) to ensure consistent yield accounting and feed vs. output tracking. Identify process inefficiencies and ensure the data reported to planning and scheduling systems is trustworthy. 

• Power & Utilities: Perform online mass and energy balance of utility networks (steam, water, fuel gas) in power plants or industrial sites. For example, balance a steam network to track generation, consumption, and losses across high, medium, and low pressure steam headers – a use case proven at TAQA Morocco’s power plant. This leads to better load distribution decisions and identification of measurement biases in real time. 

• Metals & Mining: Carry out metallurgical accounting – ensuring that what goes into a mill or smelter matches what comes out, accounting for inventory and losses. Sigmafine’s ability to track compositions and handle multiple phases (solids, liquids) is beneficial for mining operations that need to reconcile mineral processing data on a daily or shift basis. 

• Food & Beverage / Pharmaceuticals: Validate and reconcile batch process data to ensure quality and compliance, and track yields versus input materials, which is crucial for regulatory reporting in regulated industries. 

Across these examples, the common theme is that Sigmafine Express provides a single version of truth for operational data. By reconciling and conditioning data, it turns raw, error-prone streams into reliable information. This directly supports corporate digital transformation initiatives – enabling advanced analytics, compliance reporting, and optimization efforts to proceed with confidence in the underlying data. 

Achieving Data Confidence with Sigmafine Express 

For data management engineers, program engineers, and system integrators tasked with implementing digital solutions, Sigmafine Express offers a powerful combination of technical rigor and cloud convenience. It brings advanced data reconciliation and production accounting capabilities to complex process environments without the usual implementation headaches. By leveraging AVEVA CONNECT’s ecosystem, it ensures that even the most complex industrial operations – from oil refineries to mining complexes – can have consistent, trustworthy data for decision-making, all delivered with minimal onsite infrastructure.

Book a Demo with Sigmafine Express team https://www.sigmafine.com/products/sigmafine-express#enquiry  

Sigmafine Express on CONNECT https://www.aveva.com/en/connect-experience/connect-ecosystem/sigmafine-express/