Do Traditional Reports have a Role in the Agile Industrial Operations World of today and tomorrow?

This is a question that keeps coming up, and product managers/ engineers keep saying we need reports, but in some many ways they are confused between the past and the reality of NOW decisions today. “Today” the need for “Operational Decision” data which is the status now, and over a short time span, with the ability to discover conditions, causes, through relationships, to make “Now” decisions. These are not traditional reports which display a pre defined period and fixed formate. Also, the concept of Dashboards, predefined Gadgets on the desktop, mobile device that act like tickers. All of this is about empowerment of the NOW and reports do fit this role, so do traditional reports have a future????

This discussion has raged on for the last few years, and certainly there many mixed feelings on this, causing disjointed information approachers in Companies and from vendors supplying the solutions and products. This is not surprising as this typical of an area going through a dramatic paradigm shift in use, users, and the role, and it is happening and changing so fast, plus the merging of business information into the common strategies brings a new culture to plant.

Yes, traditional reports will have a role, but a more accurate definition of a “report” will be a “printable report”, with a definition of:

• Layout are fixed format that enables print out
• The print out could be paper, or PDF or other formats
• Well determined data/ information for a specific role, event.
• Triggered on a regular event e.g.| shift, day, end of batch.

These reports  records that used as apart of the audit of company, product, or production, for delivery records, and operations records especially as regulations requirements continue to increase.  The new generation of workers and the people coming from the business applications will expect more in what is referred to as “operational information”. This is real time information, situational awareness, and process analysis, ad hoc navigation through the information to bring awareness of conditions.

Most people are already using “gadgets” on the desktop, or mobile faceplate, for weather, stocks etc, providing instant awareness. I use these for weather, time in different parts of the world and exchange rates on my iPad and desktop saving the time to search on line. Vendors are developing industrial measure “tickers” (dials) that bring instant awareness of the key information people are interested in. Example is seen below of set of potential indicators for an industrial environment.

 

Typical industrial dials, will become "gadgets"

 

The association process data and operational context

 

“Search” will become a natural concept like “Google” new search services will start to be delivered that enable people to search, query across the “lake of industrial data and information” leveraging the navigational information  models that will be provided over the industrial data sources in order to enable this operational decision support.

Yes,  the world is changing, services in information will move to online that is a natural place, to allow the people across the distributed/ virtual enterprise access to the realtime, information in a consistent way.This year  historians will move into the cloud from Invensys and other vendors, but the real advantage of the virtual cloud will come with information, leaving the data sources local.

Tools used will be range based upon those the worker is most comfortable with, why would a business person who works in say SAP’s Business Objects want a different tool to access the required industrial operations information for their decisions. The traditional thinking by vendors and industrial people that all industrial analysis tools are provided by the industrial vendors and specialised for this space is flawed. As the community of people accessing this operational industrial information increases.

So the industrial vendors will shift their focus to providing the information model that enables navigating and information consumption by a range of standard “office” and “Business Intelligence” tools. Yes,  these industrial vendors like Invensys will provide specialized presentation, and analysis content tools that work in these other environments but provide a workflow that aligns with the industrial thinking and approach.

I will expand on this evolution of information over the next couple of weeks, but Printable Reports will exist, but they probably will be 10 to 15% of what will be used in the daily plant operations for realtime  decisions.

Self Reliance/ Self Servicing are Key Concept as the Hunger for Real Time Data Grows

2013 will see another leap in the amount of people, and different roles, accessing industrial data, and there will be another quantum leap in the amount of data people accessing. The concept of Self Reliance and Self Servicing of the user to empower himself will be key!

“Self-service BI is the idea that any business user can analyze the data they need to make a better decision. Self-reliance is the coming of age of that concept: it means business users have access to the right data that the data is in a place and format that they can use and that they have solutions that enable self-service analytics. When all this happens, people become self-reliant with their business questions and IT can focus on providing the secure data and solutions to get them there.”

“Source Top 10 Business Intelligence Trend for 2013” Tableau software

I have spent a number of hours this week discussing this concept and determining in the industrial sector how to make this a reality as we believe it is key to unlocking the full potential of the industrial landscape.

 

“Self service is the practice of serving oneself, usually when purchasing items, examples self service gas stations, and ATMs which have transformed banking.” Wikipedia

Self Reliance is a concept from the 1830s

“To accomplish one’s assigned task in an independent, resourceful, self-sufficient manner; to do one’s job without making a fuss. Reliance on one's own capabilities, judgment, or resources; independence.”Wikipedia

Both these concepts align with the “what If and “why not” culture where information is presented to ask questions, make decisions.  Key is trusted information that is effective for decisions. No longer can people request a report, they must have the ability to access, browse and navigate an information model that abstracts the industrial data source landscape, ask questions as they see fit, answers returned in a format that can be review for further analysis.

So in the industrial/operational world we will see a significant shift towards “operational” analysis, the ability to ask and search answers by asking questions like in “google” but with graphical/ process analysis feedback in narrower time span of interest. This is different to a printable report or dashboard due to the requirement for discovery, investigation mode. Users understand the basic relationships, but are looking for patterns. The plant data landscape is a “lake of unstructured, related data” that needs to be in context, and trusted, often abstracted from the traditional data source like a historian, alarm DB, or batch database. More and more tools will be introduced to help in determining “pattern recognition” through the use of complex event analysis, and “Big Data” tools and concepts will be adopted. Already tools like the “Overview” capability in the latest Release of Wonderware Information Server (released dec 2012) provides a new paradigm in process analysis out of the box across multiple data sources.

Why is operational information relevant vs reporting, it comes down to 2 factors:·        

·     More people needing access to real time data to make decisions and the majority of these people do not understand the automation layer, naming and model.

·     The Dynamic, and speed of decisions is critical to success time analysis and the decision is shorter while the breadth of information and responsibility increases.

The day of requesting and waiting for reports is over, the role of reports is reducing significantly. We are use to the internet, using “Search”, “Wikipedia” to ask and investigate, so why not for the Industrial information, it can no longer be isolated and difficult!   

Big Data will Play in 2013, and Reality on an Information System could be in 2013

“The staid old world of databases is developing faster and faster, with startups addressing new data problems and established companies innovating on their platforms. Web-based analytics tools are connecting to web-based data. And everything’s mobile.”

I read a good article whitepaper from a our Partner Tableau for intelligence software they outlined the 10 concepts that are becoming reality in 2012/3.

·         10 Intelligence Concepts :

·         Proliferation of data stores.

·         Forecasting and predictive analytics become common.

·         Mobile BI moves up a weight class.

·         Visual analytics wins Best Picture

·         Cloud BI grows up.

·         The value of text and other unstructured data is (finally!) recognized.

·         Self-reliance is the new self-service.

·         Hadoop is Real

·         Collaboration is not a feature, it’s a reality.

“2013 is the year we will recognize this story as a fairy tale.

The organization that has all its data in one place does not exist. Moreover, why would you want to do it? Big data could be in places like Teradata and Hadoop. Transactional data might be in Oracle or SQL Server. The right data stores for the right data and workload will be seen as one of the hallmarks of a great IT organization, not a problem to be fixed.”

All these concepts align with what we seeing and I will expand on but I thought this could be a good read to many of you, even though it is focused on Business Intelligence this applies to Industrial Infomration Systems:

http://cdnlarge.tableausoftware.com/sites/default/files/whitepapers/top-10-business-intelligence-trends-2013.pdf

Why design for 2020, not today! What does the “Why Not” and “What If” Attitude mean?

One of the enjoyments of writing a blog is to see the reaction, get the response, they seem to come via email, it is fasinating what topics generate interest and response.  Last week I had a set of emails asking “why care about 2020, when we are focused on today?” Another set asked about the attitude “Why not” and “What If”? Both are fair and deserve further discussion.

So why care about 2020? Why Now?

As mentioned last week, there are a number of factors which are changing the whole paradigm of the operational/ automation system. The way we have designed for the last 15 years will not be good enough for:

·         The rapid decisions needed today

·         The breadth of responsibility people will have

·         Gen Y’s attitude, and work approach

·         The rotating workers, remember by 2020 people will only be in a role for 2.4 years average. Effecting experience and knowledge to make decisions, and take actions.

·          The whole methodologyy will be transitional between desktops, different mobile devices, connected and not connected, visual  interaction, next minute audio. The transition will be seamless and natural, to increase the fluidity of executing the task.  

·         Systems will be in services for 15 to 20 years, but go through many technology changes and evolutions.

An interesting stat on 2020  is that 65 % of the tasks and jobs GenY will do during their career have not yet been invented. Also, not their professional working time will span 6 careers, 14 jobs.  So the design of the system must fundamentally absorb change. Key is the move away from designing to roles and applications, but design to “activities” with the required:

·         Notification

·         Information

·         Awareness

·         action to be taken

·         Access to knowledge.

Designing this self contained “activities” that can be hosted in all user experiences no matter the device or mode,  allows new activities to built as needed, applied to the system, and the system naturally absorbs the new activity without re-engineering impact.

The reality is that in many parts of the world,  these changes are happening now many will be in full effect in the next 2 to 3 years. Already the thought leaders in the world are designing to deliver information faster, take actions more consistently and reduce the “Time to Performance” through in built training, intuition.

What does the “Why Not” and “What If” Attitude mean?

The attitude of trying, having a go! Is a natural child like the attitude,  that applies also to people who do not have experience, similar to a growing child. Ever increasing business/ operational pressure will call for faster decisions and actions, driving increased empowerment. With increased responsibility must come increased education, and understanding to make decisions. The systems must provide guidance to so that workers can try, and make decisions faster, without significant risk.

Driving the requirement for inbuilt  “what if” capability, to answer the questions a new worker to make that decision. This could be accessing history, access experience, running a “future what if simulation model” that allows highly accurate expectations of a result near term into the future based upon the current state of the system. Yes,  it sounds too “over the top” but in the new dynamic of operations, and reduced experience the ability to ask questions is a key part of learning.

The attitude of “Why Not” and What If” is not new it is natural in children today. I see it every day in my 4 and 7 year old, yes they learn boundaries and risk based upon answers and trials. The challenge before us is to build this answering, and guidance into the systems, so it is natural, and not too costly to implement in dollars or time.

This is why the concepts of “knowledge systems”, ‘big data”, “dynamic simulation”, and “collaboration” will be come fundamental capabilities of Operational Systems.  

A Look at Industrial Operational Management Environment in 2020!!

Lets face it 2020 is only 8 years away, look at 8 years ago: Facebook had barely launched, iphone and iPad did not exit, the A380 Airbus had not flown, and there was no You Tube, Twitter had not taken. Yet today Facebook, Youtube and social media are a natural part of our culture and lifestyle. Iphone has now past MS Outlook as the worlds largest email client, and mobile devices out sell all PC sales, which shows the significant shift in everyday life to always connected with the mobile device, not just for calls, but text, news, email. Imagine doing business today without a mobile being able to access the required information. So in 2020, what will be a natural part of the Industrial Operational Management/ Plant Operations “day in the life”.

Are we designing today's systems for the future, are we looking at work ethic of 5 to 8 years out when designing? The answer is probably not farther than 2 to 3 years this could be a mistake when all the factors are changing so much.

 

Over the holiday period in my reading,  I ran into an article “How we’ll do Business in 2012” by futurist Morris Miselowski, which provoked reflection on much of what this blog has covered last year, and thoughts about reality at that point in time. During my last trip to UK, I visited a client whom I thought is coming to grips with their automation/ operation system design and planning, but looking into the period 2015 to 20, and defining the roles but most of all the “day in the life” of those roles in 2018/20. This is the correct way to go as it allows the thought and design pattern to shift to the new paradigm we will be facing in 2020.

So let’s set some facts down about the state of the world in 2020 from Mike Miselowski’s article:

• The 32^nd Olympic Games will be held.
• It will be a leap year.
• Baby Boomers will be older than 60
• One in five of us will be over 60 years of age.
• One in three employees will be working casual, part-time or project base vs career in a company.
• 40% of today’s senior leaders will have reached retirement age.
• Gen Y will account for 42% of the workforce.
• The average tenure in a job / role will be 2.4 years
• One in four workers will be working remotely and virtually.

The last 5 points echo a lot of what we are starting to see in the market, especially in certain parts of the world e.g.| China and South Africa have both lost the Baby Boomer and first half of Gen X generations. Gen Y is already a significant portion in their workforce, bringing with them real-time/ transient approaches to tasks with limited experience, they require solutions to absorb this work ethic vs challenge it. By 2020, we will all be in this mode, and it is the thought / and industry leaders who “embrace” this transitional work ethic so they can execute and grow the business by harnessing it that will be a leap frogging the market.

Mike Miselowski made a comment on tomorrow’s workplace in business, but it applies to the operational space as well:

“The 2020 workplace will need to be adept at uniting a physically – present tribe of employees with a tribe of offsite, and often transient, staff. The latter will be specifically chosen for their ability to add value to the task or project, regardless of where they are on the globe.”

This concept aligns with the thoughts we have discussed in this blog around the transition from Applications – to – Roles – to – Activities, in the operational life. Many businesses are going away from offices to activity based workplaces where you choose you workplace (desk), location for the day based on the most efficient place to execute activities at hand. Compare this with the traditional office with family photos, and all your files. Now the workspace is clear with a power supply, internet connection (probably wireless) and all your files and information will be in the “cloud” or only local working space on your local device. Traditional automation solutions run a process with a specific layout for a PC or workstation which does not align with “activity” thinking, agility in users/ roles, the industrial operational work experience of tomorrow must allow activities to be chosen and the materials, information and procedures to execute all available no matter my location or device.

Tomorrow the “cloud” will be a natural part of the operational, automation world especially relative to information sharing, knowledge management, operational procedures consistently, and KPI consistently. The architectural landscape will be an “Industrial Enterprise landscape” across the value chain of product, spanning plants, countries, cultures, automation systems, and vendors and companies. Yes,  the “federated” operational system delivering the product / service required to be “end to end” to the customer, with real-time awareness, and agility across the value chain, and this will span companies. The only way to compete is based upon service, requiring  responsiveness and agility.    

The average tenure will be 2.4 years, and if you consider 6 months to a year in today's terms is used in bringing a new person into role to 100 % productivity. The approach to “time to performance” of new personal will need to change dramatically, and learning will natural, on the job, and self/ online training. Manuals will only be references, the learning and understanding will be You Tubes for short, focused skill absorption. The attitude of “why not”, and “what if” will prevail, and the system must explain or limit the “why not” and enable the “what if” question to be answered.

Systems will constantly evolving and changing, as changes in the “value chain of a product or service” evolve with different players, plants, supplies the ability to “plug and play” a new member of the value chain into flowing system will be key.

My thoughts are flying on these topics and will be expanded on in the upcoming coming months, I hope this article provokes some reflection for you to start the year.

Happy New Year, may 2013 be a productive one.