Multi-dimensional impact of a changing Industrial Operational Workspace vs. the Transforming Workforce!

Multi-dimensional impact of a changing Industrial Operational Work space vs. the Transforming Workforce!

This blog has discussed a lot about the changing workforce, but let’s step back and look at the real change that of the industrial work space. The way in which we operate the business, from:

• business strategy to operational execution real-time alignment
• to serving customers
• new product introduction
• to operating across multiple plants and regions
• to collaboration manufacturing
• to speed and agility of manufacturing

Are all changing, at increasing speed, forcing increased volume, quicker, accountability and consistent “actionable decisions”.

There are two significant forces (workforce transformation to dynamic workforce, and the work space transformation) at play. That are “lining up” to drive the most significant transformation in the  business/ operational landscape required in order to be competitive, leveraging the third force available that of technology, (bandwidth, Internet of things, cloud, etc).

This post will focus on the changing Operational Work space as illustrated in diagram below depicts:

Shows that at least four dimensions in which the work space is changing, I suspect there are more around collaboration, sharing, accountability due to regulations. Just looking at this diagram we four dimensions:

• Moving from Multi Layers and vertical integration to flattened org, but a very virtual org, that spreads across the product value chain, not just within a plant. So you can have now a product organization that manages the product business as a whole, new products, delivery, competitive position, etc. across multiple plants, regions, etc. Compared with traditional vertical organization usually based on location.

• Moving from Command and Control to Flexibility and Agility org structures, rise use of matrix organizations, where  vertical local plant and horizontal product lines of business effect combine to drive the goals, and objectives of the personal on a plant. This is a clear evolution as the operational workforce becomes more empowered to make real-time decisions. Their responsibility and accountability increases forcing actionable decisions will require different interactions in the organization structure.

• Transforming from ladder growth/ evolution in an operational team, to a more rotating less structure evolution of a team with changing and evolving roles. As operational processes/ models change, so roles and activities of those roles with evolve. Virtual roles will become more common with the roles has operational responsibility over multiple plants /regions. So too the way in which an operational business can recruit and evolve its operational team will change. An operational team the new personal may come from anywhere, or even be located anywhere as the roles evolve, compared to the tradition ladder where roles have been relatively local and consistent for 20+ years. No longer will roles and role structure be consistent, roles will evolve and be agile to fit the new operational paradigms of the company.

• To correspond with the evolution of roles, and organizations so too HR must evolve from a process to “talent Science” that enables the evolving roles and required skills to map to transforming workforce of skills, locations. A lot of traditional HR methods must go out the door, and workforce evolution is the key to matching the role, and organization evolution, combining this with the Gen Y culture differences.    

I have spoken a lot in this blog about the changing workforce.

In reflection we must not get confused with significantly transforming Operational Work space, and the fact that organizations and roles will also be dynamic in the new world. It is important that we design our operational/supervisory system to be able to transcend the changes in roles. 

The leading thought and practice to address this Operational Workspace transformation, is the operational / supervisory system design must be centered on “activities” vs roles and applications as today.These activities are performed by roles that are changing based on "activities they are accountable for", and the system can be sustained  through the evolutionary management of these “activities” and the associated information, and action.  

Next week we will talk about the other leg of this change the workforce and “Empowering a New Generation of Front Line Workers”.

Activities Behavior Starts to become Reality
As I flex back from South Africa last week I was listening to an interview on innovation, and there was interview with Microsoft Manager for Australia, and she talked about the change in culture they have implemented in the Australian offices. Switching to Activity based officers meaning that no one has a permanent seat or desk, you go in a morning and select a desk based upon the activity you are doing that day. As you may be on the road, you may be do activities that do not need you in the office, you maybe at other offices. She talked about it as a significant change in culture but it allows agility and focus to adapt your day and role based upon activities not a role.
This is the same I see in my own life and how I have discussed realtive to the Flexible Operational Team in the industrial space, these can only be achieved when people and the culture support an Activity Based thinking and Approach. In South Africa last week, I continued to see the evolution towards this thinking in mining, and food and beverage as I spoke with customers, many do not realise they on this path, yet their actions and ideas are heading in this direction.

This is no different in my life every day, I talk about my work life being in my back pack, with my lap top, IPad, mobile cell, and mobile  wireless hotspot. Based upon the activities I have that day, meetings, calls, site visits, PowerPoint presentation preparations, technology knowledge catch up, interviews,  strategy brainstorming, these are distinct activities require different modes of thinking, I choose the best environment and location for doing these.

This is very different to the way I worked 10 to 15 years ago in an office and defined role, today my activities and role change daily based on the situation and achieving our business goals and the contribution I can make each day to that, certainly my agility, and effective working time and delivery has increased.

This is the same for the industrial world and the changing approach I am seeing in the industrial place, where companies are going to the Flexible Operational Team, as mentioned a couple of weeks ago, can only be truly achieved when people are working against activities vs roles. Key to evolution is that there will be a management of activities, both planned and reactionary, which will be acted upon by the best person, or team in order to respond as fast as possible. This does not mean that people are assigned to a certain interface/ roles,  they should be able to go to best location in the plant in order to execute that activity. This is why the whole operational control is evolving to a an aligned set of systems, that allow people to access, understand and take action in the most effective place possible.

 I was in South Africa at the annual conference there, as usual I saw a lot of innovation, and thought leadership, building on what I have seen in Western Australia in the last 6 months. The big discussion was around effectively using the human asset, through "time to Experience shortening" knowledge access, and actions, and collberation.

 But you see this continued evolution from:

Applications        to        Roles        to         Activities

Activities require a change in thinking:

·         How align information and actions from different systems to enable a co-ordinated and assignable activity.

·         How the UI changes to activities with the information, ability drill and understand and then the associated actions, which may require multiple people and certain procedure.

·         Plus a culture that allows roles and people to be flexible to take on different activities in a must more agile process.

I will expect to see this activity thinking and approach accelerating over the next year but as I have said this means aligned systems, access, and contextualization in order to make it fully effective.  

The User Interface is Evolving from User Interface Application to Role centric and now Activity centric!!

As discussed two weeks ago this is NOW not the case, a “day in the life” of a role in the plant, (e.g. process engineer, maintenance engineer, operator) today is transient in state. Today the knowledge worker in order to execute the activity they are responsible are often required to move  out from one state, say the control room, to a local operator station, then maybe mobile. Same can happen for other roles where they are still responsible for an activity or supporting the activity when they leave the plant, so may need mobile awareness, and interaction through the web.

This has shifted people to think that we should be designing the User Interface not based on App User Interface applications but based on role.

But in the last year there has been a shift beyond this to “Activity” based, this is significant move. Meaning that operational activities with their intelligence/ information and actions need to designed so that can execute on all User Interfaces (desktop and roaming devices). The change is that due to a workers location, and plant situation the worker may have to take on new activities which are typically outside of their defined role. Matching the growing demand for agility in operational roles.

But as discussed last week the requirement for natural training and certification becomes more critical, as a worker may take on an activity due to location, and they have not performed this activity for a while so the worker must be able access an online instruction, and sign off any required training before executing the activity. When I talk about this concept people say "this is not real, what about liability?" valid question. There are many activities that can performed in a timely manner that will reduce risk to safety , environment and therefore operational continuity. Yes it is key for the worker to be able to go through an online training and certification, the system will record all actions or audit.The worker may select a “best operational practice” and the system will guide the worker through the steps, with instructions to successfully execute the activity.

So I encourage to start thinking of Operational interfaces as an interface to execute Operational activities, and what would be the “day in life” of those who would typically responsible for it.

As we move forward with evolving the User Interfaces from Invensys, expect to see more and more collaboration services which start to deliver this activity based operational interaction. But today everything I have talked about here is possible with the current tools. 

Next week I will expand on a real situation of this evolution in an Upstream Scenario...

Traditional User Interfaces have been thought of as applications, e.g. InTouch, Suite Voyager, etc., we have seen people and vendors start moving to Role based, but today the Thought Leaders are going to Activity Based, What does this mean?

Traditionally we in product development / marketing no matter what company I have worked for, we have thought about functionality relative to User Interface products, e.g.  InTouch, Information Server, Fox View etc., this was correct for the time as roles in a plant tended to be dedicated to one type of user interface and we satisfied this market by delivering a particular user interface product.