Operational Manufacturing Interface (OMI) vs Human Man Interface(HMI) or SCADA

Over the last year, I have visited many sites, discussed with many peers the evolution of the Operational Experience in the Industrial Landscape. But over and over again I find myself in the much debate on the role and capability, as usual this is not anybody being incorrect it is a miss communication more often than not.

The traditional industrial user experience which has been owned by the Human Man Interface (HMI) or DCS workstation, where people control, monitor and interact with the process in a focused way. So in these discussions people use the HMI, but I find myself questioning what experience are they targeting or describing. More than often I pull up the diagram below to provide a reference for Industrial Operational Experience of today.

 An HMI for a process cell with a narrow focus is very different to the Operational Interface used in an Integrated Operational Center, and very quickly people see the different.

This does not mean the Time of the HMI is over, I fundamentally think it does it's job well, at the focused point at which a process cell and the human come together in a simple, clear and concise experience at a reasonable process to set up and sustain.

But as you move to the right of this diagram, increasing reason-ability, increased scope of control, increased value in decisions. No longer can you monitor the system, the system be an exception based bring to attention the critical items. The focus is on Operational Continuity, which goes beyond control to Optimization and performance, and effective alignment of the operational team. Understanding the operating boundaries set up by safety to humans and environment, and maintaining maximum operational/energy performance.

To achieve this, the user is looking at operational view/dashboard of the high level process with the ability to investigate situations onto surrounding operational view real estate for deeper focus, without losing the overall screen. This avoids missing situations, as this Center view is an exception based.   The ability to investigate and then share with others in the team, easily, and for dynamic live collaboration to exist between the site field staff and operational experts, production, maintenance etc no matter where they are.

The information, types of content used in these investigations are not standard process graphics of traditional HMI, they are to name a few:

Video, alarms, alarm event analysis, forms for data entry, and searching. Reports, documents, live collaboration tools, such as chat, video conference, and operational analysis tools to put events, data in the context of now, past and future for " what if" etc.

Key is the interaction between this content, with ability focus on the main screen and situation, then automatic relations across other content for rapid investigation and understanding is achieved for fast decisions.

This is NOT and HMI in the traditional sense and has caused us to term this new interactive, multi content environment in a new type of operational experience the " Operational Management Interface". This multi content environment will go across the operational control room to roaming expert maybe on a tablet, but different layout experience, and to the site.

The key is the interactive, collaboration experience across multiple content types to enable rapid decisions.

As you design for 2020 and operational workspace required over the next few years and for the next 20 years, ask yourself what is required by role, and activity.

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.

Reaction to my Blog on Windows 8!

Two weeks ago I discussed the fact that I believe the release of Windows 8 is a key milestone in the evolution of the Operational Experience.

There was a lot of reaction and debate as some people took this “as there will be a quick adoption of Windows 8 in the industrial environment”, which is not what was stated. The comment was relative to key milestone. Many people have gone to Windows 7, and it is a remarkably solid release, and will satisfy people for years.

Some people commented that Windows 8 will only be for the commercial market, e.g.| the “surface" tablet market, this will initially be true, but people also said with the IPAD people would not take it up. At a conference 2 weeks when Iooked around 90 % of people were on tablet devicse vs 2 year before everyone was taking notes doing email on laptop computers. We are all still doing the same “job" of taking notes and doing emails, but we have shifted to a new device due to the technology making my execution of job of taking notes and emails more efficient due to:

·         Size of the device it is easier to carry and handle at the conference

·         The speed at which it boots up, it is instant vs starting up.

·         I can see emails fast

·         I use mind manager for note taking this runs well as an app on the tablet

·         I can also draw diagrams easily that are captures as part of my notes

·         I can also take photos of diagrams, slides and whiteboard discussions and include these all as part of my notes.

People did not recognize this 2 years ago, but they now see the advantage and have evolved.

Looking at Windows 8 it provides significant new capability and paradigm change by going to “touch” that when combined with new devices, pcs coming from the hardware suppliers there will advantages people see in improving their “jobs" on the industrial floor. These advantages will only become fulling clear as people apply it.

But when combined with:

·         Gen Y’s expectation of “touch” experience

·         The natural requirement of collaboration over multiple interfaces in one system with personal or role base views to information

·         The whole methodology of jobs today, requiring evolution of the operational experience.      

Windows 8 is a potential key milestone, but that does not mean fast take up, that will probably come in Windows 9, as the story, situation, and advantages are well understood.

An example of the advantage of the “touch” world is the zoom by gesture it is natural to zoom, or expand out, and then swipe left and right for panning, these are far more natural than the taking a mouse a “clicking” on a location and dragging a zoom box over the area I want see in more detail. Watching my children struggle with mouse vs the touch screens of the IPAD they ask why we need to do this, they first go to the screen which is not “touch” enabled, but that is natural.

I will ask the same question I proposed 2 weeks ago:

“As you go to upgrade the industrial interfaces, would you not buy devices include these capabilities and come with Windows 8 vs the traditional PC, even if your HMI, Operational experience has not evolved yet?  

SIMPLICITY the path to adoption, and alignment!

Last week I talked about the two big concepts companies are going to have to grapple with in order to increase competitive efficiency (operational efficiency).

Last week I was dealing with some projects and again the example of technology solution/ change is simple compared to associated “cultural change” that has to be invoked inorder to achieve the objective and return. Key is adoption of the new approach, why not merge technology/ and human nature, to enable a key ingredients of change adoption by changing the situational experience. Human nature is one to to take the path of least resistance, so “simple”, “logical” and “intuitive” experiences can only promote adoption.

 

Many of you will have read the Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs” there many messages but one principle was simple and least path to resistance.  Another book that reflects this and brings many smiles to your face is Alan Cooper’s “The Inmates Are Running the Asylum”. Highlighting how engineers add features devices like alarm clocks, movie players, etc that increase the complexity over multiple versions to point that only 15% of features are actually used.

Both of these books are targeted at product development, but in reality, the same applies to Operational/ Automation solutions that must be adopted to succeed, but as it was pointed out again last week to me. Time for dedicated training in this every changing world is diminishing as fast as the introduction of new changes in systems. Combine this with the “rotating staff” symptom I have talked about a lot, with people taking on new activities, so new procedures, experiences, and less time to learn them.Steve Jobs insisted on simple, take out unnecessary actions, always asking “why” is it included, when reviewing a product.

How many of you ask this same question when engineering an operational solution, or we acting like so many of us engineers just add this one new feature, someone might use it. Maybe it is because I am older, or have been bitten many times, but I am starting to follow a similar policy where “choice= complexity”. There is less time for choice; the systems must provide us with options, enabling faster, more consistent decisions and actions. Minimal learning curve, so when looking at an activity, the question should be; “What is associated experience that would minimise the learning to perform that activity confidently?” How does someone learn, most of us avoid manuals, in preference to 3 to 5 minute youtube?

This “simplicity” motto applies to configuration, setup and operational execution at all levels, this is why standards are the only option going forward, providing a set of well designed, proven building blocks that are composed into an application. The standards can be evolved that the consuming application will evolve, with the changes no matter if they model, UI etc.

This is why great products are driven by one person who represents the user, and looks at the final experience, as well as capability. It is pleasing to see this in some the latest engineering projects from system integrators, they have minimal key strokes to achieve a result, and navigation is “follow the colour”. One person said you should also look at your design, not from today, but if you went away and came back in 2 years would you still understand it, and be able operate it, or add changes to it? These are good questions.

The leading “Operational Excellence” companies are on the journey of asset alignment, team alignment, but also driving simplicity to everything from architecture, standards, UI, models, interfaces etc. It is proven to achieve adoption, and sustainability of the solution. Too often we are too close to wood and trees and miss the holistic experience, and forget the drive of simplicity.

Why our User Interfaces must be come Model Driven?

I referred to “Model Driven “ navigation last week, and got some reaction that we are already there with ArchestrA Graphics. This made me step and re read what I in the last blog, and realise that I had assumed some understanding.

Yes today ArchestrA Graphics are built into the model in the objects etc, this is a significant step from the classic InTouch like window which the graphics are independent of the model, just linked, but many applications do not build in navigation to the model. My actually intention was not just these graphics in the model but take the whole operational experience to  level, that the model and views into this model for operational control etc, can be independent of the device and layout. Also, the model must be able to change freely and not a characteristic of what device or who will engage with it.

Similar to the web browser if you look at the web page content, it is design unaware of the device, the real estate etc that is available. The location which a page is displayed, or accessed is up to the browser consumer.

If we now take a look at the range of User Interfaces below, these likely will be all in one solution on the one namespace, with all users being able to access the same state and data of the plant. Interacting with plant and interface relative to their role’s actions. So in the example below you would have 5 plus user interface type experiences, different laoyouts due to device and role etc.

Now add to this the roaming user, with the increasing policy of “get out from behind the desk/screen”, where the available real estate on a mobile device calls for a different layout.

How can we design user interfaces the way we did in the 90s? Where we designed a HMI application for a role/ location, with a fixed layout and navigation experience.

Today engineers will continue to evolve the model of the plant, developing say a new process unit, including in this required interfaces (windows) that enable control, analysis etc. These windows, forms, specialized clients will be accessible to all users through their own user interface.

Avoiding people having to reengineer each user interface, each time the model changes. So to avoid this, the navigation of which windows are available at this level in the model, needs to be built into the model. Today some applications are doing this with ArchestrA Graphics in the application, but to go with this is need for each user to be setup their user interface layout.

This means each user/role can define their own layout, with panes as to where certain information is displayed. Where navigation come up, etc.

I saw a very good example of this two weeks ago, where navigation through the model could be through a tree, through the mimic drill, etc, and the model provides the context. As Invensys evolves the operational experience tools so that engineering and lifecycle costs reduce as the solution complexity increases, the above situation is a real one which we are making natural.

Consider your user interface designs to day, do not think narrowly to one role, one layout, it is time to move the user interface screens to the model, away from the role/ display etc, providing the freedom to have my own experience.