"Times are a changing": Re imaging of Our World, it is flow on to Industrial Experience

As I sit on a plane heading over the Pacific again, I look around me and even my life and see how we are re imaging, or changing the way we perform daily activities. The different devices, applications change the way in which we engage with traditional activities.

Example below in the images are real:

Hotel checking happens from the applications on my smart phone instead of registering at the front desk.

In Singapore last month it was was Friday afternoon, I was on the street hoping to get a taxi to airport, initially, you think wave one down. No, not today there must have been 8 of us trying to compete for taxis at peek hour. So out comes the smart device and Über application, and I nominated a price on line for car, happy to pay a little bit more to not miss my flight, and secure a service, a win for me, a win for the driver ( he got a bigger fair).

I travel allot overseas, and I use electronic money/ wallet from my smart device to pay for immediate services when I arrive when credit cards are not available.

All of these are natural approaches to practical day to day actives and there are many more, how many of use the traditional A to Z street maps, does not even exist in the car anymore we have the GPS.

So how is this re imaging coming over into the industrial world, it is happening fast than you expect. The operational day to day life of all of us in the industrial space will be totally different in 5 years, but it has already started. With changes in company IT to enable commercial off the shelf devices into the plants, allows the innovation of industrial world to leverage these devices.

Last week I was working with a supplier with irradiation pivots for farmers. They had empowered the farms to monitor and control the moisture on their fields and control the irrigation pivots from an application on the smart phone. Replacing the need for the SCADA application at each farm, very logical. See image below.

Source "Waterforce"

Alarms and motivations now going to smart device which could be smart phone, of the new smart watches from google see below.

The traditional field worker contacting central controls room by radio, to the empower field agent, who has cameras so that control room can see the field. Plus the field worker has smart devices iPads with context to gain knowledge of current state of an area, plus information at his finger tips instead of going back to the workshop.Also best operational practices have been embedded in the field device so he knows not just the decision but the best action, and how to execute.

Training use to be going around with an experienced worker and learning from him, taking notes and taking time to come to experience. This being replace with operator training simulators, and immersive, 3D virtual environments as seen below. So now in a safe environment operators and field workers can go through scenarios, learn practices without having people in the field in danger and provide "near life experience". Much more effective than in the plant, and faster as situations can be played out, so experience is gain rapidly.

Nothing new to pilots, for years with the effect that situations the pilot and co pilot understand their role, and actions instinctively. Example the Hudson River landing 3 minutes the pilot and co pilot understood roles, understood actions. They did not have communicate hey just executed; this same approach needs to happen between the operator and field worker and even the virtual expert, and it is all possible today.

This re imaging of the industrial operational, worker day is happening with increasing speed but with it comes efficiency and empowerment, all key in agile world, and time of operational transformation.

Federation of Multiple Control Systems is a Key part of the Operational Transformation, It’s time for an “Industrial Enterprise Configuration Environment”

Last week this came up 3 times in a week, customers asked me are we working on a unifying configuration environment that will manage standards for control, supervisory and more over multiple different vendor controllers. We talked about the need for multiple teams, one for templates development, others for deployment and the critical need for version management. You cannot expect to have standards if you do not have strong governance and in my experience this means a tool, and environment that promotes the successful management of standards.

We talk about federation of information across data sources in an information driven manufacturing environment, but an effective operational transformation is about decisions and actions in a timely manner and consistent manner. Too often we talk at the high level and overlook the extensive work required on the plan automation control integration. Most plants are on to at least their second generation of control, in DCS, PLC and SCADA. These systems are mature and functionally immensely rich that they can expand and evolve to satisfy most processes today.

The Modern Automation/ Operational system is not an enclosed system, it will have many controllers of different sizes running different processes, hopefully the correct controller for the correct process. With the evolution of the “Internet of things” in the automation world there is a trend to smaller powerful controllers so each asset/ process has it is own control that links into the higher world. This makes sense as long as there is the ability to federate these controls from a:

·         Naming convention consistency across the controllers

·         Control Standards for a process over different controllers

·         The ability to configure different levels of a control/ process strategy across controllers but deployed to a different controller instances which in many cases will be controllers from different vendors.

·         The ability to automatically configure the integration with the supervisory platform and the controller at the same time, any changes are automatically managed and sustained.

·         Clear governance over the management of standards and versions across the supervisory and controllers

·         Version management is key the ability to manage different versions of standards in the same strategy deployed to different controllers, combined with incremental updates.

·         The End to End System Integrity at the time of deployment, this is the step most people are concerned with as the system must make sure the integrity of the different parts of control sub system are in place, so we have no dead ends on references that can cause controllers to not function. Assumed in this is the peer to peer communication and referencing between controllers of different roles, types and vendors.

Yes, the leaders in the operational transformation while implementing a Supervisory Platform with operational standards and decision support, they are complimenting their investment with an equally often more significant investment in alignment of the existing and new control systems. Their standards, their interfacing and most of all their management of integration and standards.

The new generation “Industrial Enterprise Configuration Environments” will live above the individual vendor configuration systems but enable a holistic management of strategy and standards leveraging a multi discipline team, with version governance naturally built in. When we look at the “Internet of things” this will become key, as we go to “atomic control” at the devices and machines, the thought of learning multiple tools is not practical. The only way in the industrial world will be a common configuration environment that enables standards, and deployment to different device platforms, with governance, and confidence.

Watch this space as we accelerate the innovation in this area, to bring reality. 

The Steps on the Operational Journey from Siloed to Optimized to achieve Operational Excellence

We have all seen the debate on how do we go from todays manufacturing to an effective operational landscape, across the full valued supply chain. The increased urgency of this debate has become  recent discussions, I have with different companies; people are trying understand how they going stay competitive delivering the correct products, to the correct markets, locations, in the correct time, at the correct price and margin. All this with increasing costs in labor, energy, transport and regulation compliance.  

The common thread across the discussions was:

·         Real time transparency across all sites, and “cogs” in the supply chain.

·         Shift from “traditional reporting” to “actionable decisions”

·         Shift from operators to “Operational Teams” that align operations, planning and expertise

·         Shift from Siloed process on a plant or across plants to optimized and aligned.

·         Shift from experience in people to experience in the system

·         Alignment and consistency across the operational decisions and action for a product no matter location. 

Providing the foundation for optimizing and continuous improvement, not just of assets but process, assets, product production, and workforce.

The diagram below shows the journey from a high level, often ask where companies are? Through the lenses of product delivery. 

The road to coordinated has been a journey for the last 12 years with the ISA 95, and interoperability efforts, but still I see multiple systems, multiple business systems, even of the same type, and limited alignment of business strategy across multiple sites at the operational level. What we seeing from leaders is a simplification of operational processes, reduction in variety and uniqueness across process units and plants. How many times do we here “my plant is unique” this cannot apply when each plant is manufacturing the same product. Yes, the plants are different; the layout is different, the equipment is from different vendors, different times, different control systems, but we must harmonize above that.

I spoke last week of “Industrial Internet of Things”  a big part of success of this concept, is that different equipment, from different vendors, become smart, and enabled. You as the operational plant will be able to coordinate (input control strategies) across multiple control devices, (RTUs, Smart instruments, PLCs, DCS, etc.). However, the operational practices and how people interact with these devices will become abstracted from the devices. This must happen, to deal with the changing workforce.

Another  concept will be the “smart product” that is aware of its state, it is requirement/ expectations, and can advise of product health early in the “to be state,” Yes products will a smart thing, this is already happening.

However, what are steps to Optimized you see the above, but I like this diagram below with seven steps. A critical point is that a plant, a value supply chain must get complete step 4, to have a foundation towards optimization.

Companies have been working steps 1, 2 foundation of integrated plant, which is scalable, and evolutionary, so different components can be upgraded, evolved as they need, but the overall system stays aligned and working. Transparency through common measures and models so “trusted real-time information” from sites can be seen.

However, step 3 is the one most companies have not added as it deals with human assets, but is key, and then shift in step 4 to “activities” and tasks so different users will execute “activities.” At this point you are at point where Capital assets and Human assets and acting in a consistent way, and with measurable information.

Providing the opportunity to start quantitatively measuring operational process, productivity across the sites, understand the effectiveness of the different “activities.” So that now core standards for asset measurement, information, and activity/ actions can establish by process and product no matter the assets, controllers, etc. These can rolled out in a module methodology to allow an instrumental evolution, avoid the big bang of a large operational management project, but bring valuable “wins” to the company. 

At this point the experts in process, maintenance, operational planning can see understand, quantitatively measure process and operational procedure and evolve tuning for operational excellence.

Where are you on this journey? Break it down in small steps with tangible wins on a coordinated journey.

Industrial Internet of Things: What does it mean to me?

I must have sat through 3 to four presentations of IoT in the last 2 weeks from different vendors, different industries. Combine this active strategic discussions within our development teams, you see many angles and thought approaches.

ARC’s definition:

“The industrial internet of things is a collection of technologies that can come together in a targeted  solution to improve business performance and machine availability”.

The key is the transition to information driven system has begun and it is about alignment of devices, process and people, to be effective in real-time agile production. Extending across the plant, and the whole value supply chain, providing transparency in end to end operations.

All are valid, but the question was asked on a site visit last week " what does it mean to us?". So I stood up and went to white board and drew three circles and intersected them, to represent the opportunity.

As you can see below in the diagram below:

The three circles were

1/ The Capital Assets, these a non-living devices, such as instruments, machines, motors, conveyors, tanks, PLCs, DCS, RTUs, switch gear, etc.

2/ The Human Assets: all the workers and roles no matter of location, if they employees, contractors, consultants, but are required for the efficient, timely operation of the production facility.

3/ The Operational, Product Processes, procedures that applied across multiple capital assets, across workers, and between chapati all assets and workers to gain consistent operations, production. Increased production consistency, increased utilization of all resources both capital and human assets, making the most effective use of resources such as materials and energy.

To many people refer to IoT are just looking at assets and smart devices, and moving to asset management, this is only a initial step, when you improve operational productivity out of the plant is when the paradigm of value is achieved. To me it is not just about smart devices, it is about combining this with proven production procedures, processes across the different assets in plant, both human and capital in order to gain must effective, efficient production.

Taking the customer a little by surprise, as they just been hearing about smart devices, but when brought relative to their plant reality sank in. Why is different to the traditional approach, is that when you think as in diagram below (from ARC) maturity of devices in the IoT as they become smarter to autonomous.

The devices, assets such as packaging machines, motors, pumps, agitators become fully aware of what is running in them, What they are meant to produce and how Their ability to achieve the desired result Their health and readiness to perform to expected capabilities. 

The machines move to been just apart of the team, enabling awareness to operational workers as early as possible of abnormal conditions that will effect production output, so " actionable decisions" can be taken. So when I walked around their plant I found the human assets all the different roles, and there were many, today they running between fixed work stations, looking uncomfortable in executing tasks, and doing paper inputs all over the place, totally in adhoc actions.

In the potential new world the human assets, are empowered with devices, from small, to tablets, to PCS, but they aware, connected, and the ability understand the situation. Combine this with the move to embed experience in the systems, so actionable steps can be taken in timely manner no matter where the worker is.

So the worker is :

• Now aware instantly of an up coming situation
• They can understand the context immediately
•  They can make a decision
•  They can take an action

All happening in real-time, no delays, and coordinated through exception based machines, processes, and embedded experience, so now assets, production and human workers are working as one.

Walking around this plant last week, the opportunity to take small steps in a coordinated operations and empower the workers to be effective, will yield significant returns. The internet of things in the industrial context is taking the operational / production co-ordination we have today to another level, extending the scope and understanding of workers, buy making capital assets and human assets apart of aligned team through embedded operational practices/ procedures.