Accelerated Training is the only way to Deal with Dynamic Workforce Paradigm

As time period workers are in a role and especially a site, the systems and culture of learning, interacting and gaining knowledge must change. This happens with the knowledge and learning coming from this system as the worker requires and prepares for executing a task, vs tradition class / face to face sessions.

Operations teams in a broad range of manufacturing have discovered that the workforce, especially operators, are changing jobs more frequently.  This challenge has become more important than the “aging workforce”, although this also contributes to the acceleration of turnover.  There must be a strategy which effectively trains operators faster than their turnover.

One part of training best practices is to continue the training throughout the operators’ work term, such as summarized in the following diagrams:

The right-hand diagram summarizes some amount of acceleration in benefits, where OTJ is on-the-job training.  While this acceleration appears to be attractive, this acceleration isn’t enough – the time to profitability is still several years.  So an additional strategy is necessary, as shown in the following diagram:

The above diagram describes a strategy of acceleration: instead of focusing on the basics, the training focuses on the dynamic aspects.  This means that the operators are trained as early as possible on “advanced” topics.

The power generation industry has developed a measure of operator excellence called “error free”.  It is a measure where loss of production or damage to equipment was identified with operator errors.  During the last 7 years, power generation companies have demonstrated up to 6:1 acceleration in achieving “error free” status.

The technical change in the training simulators is focused on simulating the dynamic aspects such as weather, supply chain demand and changes in raw materials.

"Smart, intelligent, brilliant devices" what is key is "self aware" devices

As I listen to “Youtubes," lectures on the Internet of Things, and in industry forums, I hear the terms of " smart, intelligent, and now brilliant" devices, as we move to smart cities, smart farms, smart airports, and smart industrial sites. I asked myself what is the core value and difference?

There is a significant leap and a significant switch from monitoring devices from a high application or humans, to " self aware" devices that monitor their own health and capability. Next you ask the difference between "smart" to " brilliant" devices and interestingly there is even amongst the marketing hype! The level of capabilities associated to the device that takes them from simple "self awareness" of asset health, to predictive and "machine learning" capability to move from the " as is" alarm to "to be " state."

However, it is all increased levels of embedded "self awareness" capability as close to the device or in the device to monitor, and understand it is effective condition to the "golden" operating condition, with the intent to sustain "operational continuity." The key is device level " awareness" and the connection of these devices to the Internet apart of a  holistic system( site, enterprise), raising exception conditions automatically, and acted on in a consistent, and “best practice procedure." With many of the same types of devices can now be aware of each other, learnfrom each other and grow in "self awareness" capability. Increasing the ability to shift to the "to be " state where exception conditions seen early,  corrective action can be taken fast and early to maintain " operational continuity."

As we go forward the " future" will also be incorporated into the device, eg high fidelity simulation models will be available for common devices, and will learn relative to the particular device setup and situation. Enabling not just the current condition but the future condition window to be seen, and " what if" to be played out but inexperienced operational staff to make well informed and correct decisions. This simulation model will either run locally or be called upon by the device to a remote simulation environment with discrete device models.

All of this device awareness is what I see as a paradigm shift the "Internet of things" brings and the opportunity to the industrial operational space for the next jump in productivity.

I have heard many times, and agree with the Internet of things, "self aware"devices that leverage their "brothers and sister devices" and other intelligence not applications, brings the next step change in output growth and GDP output. Called the "third industrial revolution" where and industrial revolution is when a significant step change in GDP productivity output is achieved, the first two been:

1/ the first industrial revolution with the steam engine, and then self pro population capability for production and transport.

2/ the Internet in 1992 to 2000, and beyond where human communication, collaboration and the " flat world was introduced" switching us from regional to global effectiveness.

3/ the Internet of things" self aware devices, and collaboration between devices, applications and people to address the fast moving world we live in and the requirement of “Now” decisions and satisfaction.

Too often all of this is associated with larger companies and utilities, but last week I visited a small food plant in rural Australia, to discuss their next step in operational change, and competitiveness. Two thought leaders where present, and it was great to have a very active and productive discussion around not problems, but opportunities. Leading to a powerful discussion on discovery investigations around these opportunities, and the key opportunities were again:

1/ People cost, therefore effectiveness

2/People efficiency in a dynamic and changing workforce

3/Brand integrity, and quality

4/Variable costs in materials but now energy

The discussion took us to the operational work space of the future the need for not data, but effective information that enables exception based operational management, supervisory control of the plant, and process.  Shift from process management to product production management, spanning all the processes and production units required to produce a product. A shift to activities that are required in order make the product and enable operational continuity.

The concept of "self aware plant” made up " self aware devices” and " self aware process" with embedded operational procedures was a reality, and not just for big companies, but even more critical for small to medium companies/sites that have fewer resources.

Maybe the new world is not that far away!

It is the End of the Year, what is on people minds this year vs. Last year?

Sitting a coffee table in Convent Garden in London, the chilling winter wind blowing through me, but the dazzling lights of Christmas and the holiday season dance about me. I have the opportunity to absorb the discussions of the last week discussing with teams from around the world what is driving operational thought leaders in mining, transport, and infra-structure. Now I look up at dazzling lights my mind shifts to the thought of;”is there a difference in operational priorities this year vs. last year and the answer is YES!!!”

The economic outlook is “soft” and nervous; certainly infra-structure projects from governments are under increased scrutiny. Last year there was some optimism as things were turning, today for many they walking carefully, we are seeing commodity prices causing pull back in major/ mega projects. Also, we are another year into this final run on the experience of “Baby Boomer” and Early Gen X (born 1960 to 1970) moving on, and that experience going out the door.

Reflecting on the key themes underlying discussions in Operations Strategy as we end 2012:

·         How to increase the effectiveness of roles, so they are able to make more decisions. This is leading to active discussions around “decision support systems” more than reports, but an experience that will enable a holistic view on information in context and actions to be taken in a timely manner.

·       Opex cost tightening, that strategies are around reducing operations costs, through increased efficiency, the discussion is not on people reduction, but is around “energy” reduction. This is causing discussions on energy around how to align plant, equipment usage to low energy rate periods and bring this into the plant operational planning.

·         The Aging worker discussion has shifted or started to shift to how deal with people in roles for short periods causing limited experience. There is recognition that this is not just an age issue, but the nature of operational business and HR that people are moving locations, roles at an increased frequency compared with 5 to 10 years. Note that this has only started to be recognized but with recognition.  

·         Having people more aligned into effective work. This is an intriguing one, but there is a lot of discussion on what workers are doing in their 8 hours and how much of it is effective. This aligns with the shift towards focusing on “planned work” vs. “ad hoc, unplanned” work. This immediately provides benefit in safety levels, and efficiency.

·         The discussion of how to execute solutions of the complexity required, unifying many sites and systems, how to build and sustain standards, how to execute in a timely fashion at minimal risk when shareholders are constraining capital budgets. Yet everyone realizes the programs must go on, so a healthy discussion around how execute, modularization of the program into “bite size chunks” using multiple engineering teams. This discussion will grow in momentum in 2013.

·         With the drive down on Opex and Capex, there is an increasing review of the custom, unsustainable solutions running in the operations, especially MES, which traditionally had a significant customization. Companies are investigating programs to shift the cost or growing and sustaining the systems away, either by new solutions based upon off the shelf products, or outsourcing the sustaining of the system.

There are many other side conversations around information in the context, the unifying of data, potential to use “Big Data” concepts (see blog coming up in the coming weeks). There is  realization in the holistic view across the Enterprise Landscape, and the changing Operational Worker, I believe there will be a resetting of role definitions across the plants, as the “day in the life “ of Operational Worker (no matter the role) is changing significantly with the freedom mobility brings.

I am sure I have missed some points, but the key is the “outlook” is different, and the leading companies are considering different factors on when, what and how they will evolve their operational systems in order to achieve Operation Effectiveness.

All good food for thought over these upcoming holiday period.

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.

The Perfect Storm in Industrial Operations = People Excellence

The most significant disruption in operational strategy thinking is happening in this post GFC (global financial crisis) era, in determining an operational execution environment enabling timely contributions by the operational team to plant execution. The focus is on currently on operational processes, but quickly this will drive a new operational experience to go with a new operational execution plan. Traditional user interfaces will not “cut” it both in products, or the way they have been implemented. Let me expand on my thoughts on this operational experience, which I refer to as “People Excellence” driving a new paradigm of operational empowerment for all roles in plant operations.

In order to contribute to strategy I spend a significant amount of time a week, listening and asking end-users, and implementers, discussing changes and ideas. A common thread  around the world is operational personal challenge, especially the finding of people to replace to existing “baby boomer generation” and lack of experience available in the market.

This is only part of what I believe the most significant disruption in operational strategy in the last 20 years, yes since the introduction of the PC.
There is a perfect storm happening with these vectors:

·     Aging workforce: the significant amount of current experienced operations, maintenance, process workers who will retire in the next 5 to 10 years. I have heard some mangers in “oil and gas upstream” talk about 80% of their current team will be gone in 5 years. We have to be able to capture knowledge and enable

·      Operational Agility means Decision NOW: To be competitive decisions must be made now this has caused a change in thinking that workers need to be empowered to make more decisions, through more information, higher knowledge and access to experience, a transition from “worker” to “knowledge worker”. This also means they have more responsibility. As one customer said last week traditionally they had an operator cover 5 to 10 wells, this was fine when you have 100 wells which lived 20 years, but in the next 5 years he stated “we will have 20000 + wells, we will not have 20000 operators”.

·      The Rotating operational person means “time to experience” is shorter than ever: With the experienced generation retiring and transitioning to a generation 30 years their junior, and the new factor that people are not staying in their role or location longer than a year. One company stated 10 years ago people were in a role/loaction approx. 5 years, now they are seeing 8 months, so we have to design assuming limited experience. 

·      Transition to digital native worker, with very different expectations, causes challengers with worker retention: The new generation is “digitally native” they expect access to knowledge, they expect “touch experience”, they expect collaboration form anywhere, they expect to learn on the fly.

Step back and look at all these vectors; you have significant disruption happening for those in charge of industrial / manufacturing operational execution strategy. 

That will require:

·       A new generation of user interface products with more than interface capability, but embedded knowledge access, experience access, actionable procedures, collberation services and natural intelligence to really empower the operational workers in all roles.

·       Operational experience design. Notice I did not use HMI (Human Machine Interface), as it is a true “operational experience” that goes through the “day in the life” of the new generation of operational knowledge workers.

Example you see a massive $10B projects but they are all at risk due to lack of people to execute them and more importantly run them after they built.

As I stated in the last blog one of the “legs” of what Enterprise Control is about is “Empowerment of Operational People” this will be through a multiyear program of “People Excellence” which will evolve Invensys from a product centric approach to user interaction, to a more “operational centric experience”. Providing freedom to knowledge worker to execute his daily tasks, decisions through a number of user interface devices, different locations, and interacting with different team members naturally no matter the state.

There are many concepts here which I will explore over the coming weeks.