Is the day of User Guides / Manuals coming to end as Learning and Guides Merge???

I constantly work across teams, and companies, and listen now to challenge of the “dynamic workforce” that is rotating on sites and the challenge of “knowledge management/ transfer” constantly raises it’s self.

I was going to do a this weeks blog on a different topic, but a call this morning and one yesterday from engineering partners and customers around “knowledge transfer” and need to reduce the “time to experience” constantly comes up.  So I decided to chat about this challenge.

We have it within product development, how to transfer knowledge to field and set learning just does not work, so “self service” “E Learning is the big thing. But what the engineering house wanted to discuss was about their traditional project documentation, as they feel they waste a lot of time on documents that get out of date, and in many cases are not used.

This is again the same debate we have internally and I read in the forums as the traditional “User Guides” are giving way to videos, and then people debate what is the difference between E Learning, and user guides.

The question was asked why can’t our user question experience be short e learning's, and then if you have someone who wants to end to end learning these short E learning's and structured for a logical flow.

This is certainly where the software market is going, and seems logical for the Solution market. As the solutions developed on stand product need to evolve to solutions, the “learning experience” has to shift to in line, and native.

We have seen out operator training systems accelerate the retention, of data, and process for success. Shift to experiment and hands on, visual experience has an impact. This leads to the discussion of if video, recordings, , embedded simulation cases need to be part of the knowledge system.

Without a doubt “knowledge transfer” in our dynamic world is key, and maintaining the value of knowledge in a form that can easily consumed.

What is required is a knowledge system that:

·       Enables natural access in the context

·       Access remotely on different devices

·       Ability to easily add new knowledge and information.

·       Knowledge Management is key to tune, clean up knowledge, so the system is effective 5/ Rich search ability

The key here is an open system that enables crowd sourcing of information from many different roles, from within the company and from outside, but those who can contribute. The challenge in the industrial world traditionally contribution from roles was limited, this was due to main reasons;

·       The culture and atmosphere have not promoted the sharing, contribution

·       The systems did not enable natural, easy contribution, to one place that enables effective information.

Both of these factors are in transformation:

·       The systems / technologies are now available for knowledge, information systems to common, and easy to use and contribute. A notable example is Wikipedia that has millions of people contributing, and millions using. Key is it is simple to add new and extend knowledge posts from where ever you are. But they have a common hosted system, and they have a team of people reviewing and managing the information, so the system' s value is maintained. But I doubt the “word” is the best mode for rapid intake.

·       The culture of gen y is decidedly different to baby boomer even early gen x, they naturally search, share and contribute. Without this cultural transformation,  the concepts of Wikipedia and Facebook would not have worked, and grown to become such a natural part of the modern lifestyle.

It is time that the concepts of a Wikipedia / Youtube capability become a natural part of the industrial landscape, where the tagging of knowledge can provide the context and linkage with the supervisory system. The supervisory system must naturally call this knowledge system, passing context, and the natural ability to contribute and search.

All operational people no matter device should feel, like they do on Facebook, to add comment, capture events, capture experience from the system, and tag with context to increase search ability and use.

So will we have user guide/ solution manuals or will evolve to online learning, that is adhoc, and evolving vs a “snapshot” in time.

Knowledge must transfer to Industrial Systems to Combat the Skill Shortage/ Lack of Experts

A couple of weeks ago I talked about tacit knowledge and how it is key due changing way experts will be deployed, and short fall in skilled workforce. This was driven home again this week, with the release of skill assessment by “Accenture 2014 Manufacturing Skills and Training Study” that showed some real truths to the situation in the USA.

The diagram below show the current split of jobs that Highly skilled to skilled to unskilled, then the second shows that percentage of the Highly skilled and skilled jobs will grow over the next 2 years.

This is in total contradiction to the next set of questions around how severe is the skill shortage in customers.

The take away is that we putting in more complex processes, and systems in order to compete in the “flat world” which requires increased skilled people, yet there is reducing capacity in skilled, and highly skilled talent, actually the pool is shrinking.

The study goes on to talk about training and the use of operator training systems, and the need for intuitive (self learning) systems. But my thoughts rang back to discussion on Tacit Knowledge and how critical it is to capture experience not in words, or videos, but in systems that enable actionable decisions (built on embedded captured operational experience). Examples are Embedded operational Procedures, simulation for the future, pattern recognition on conditions to see events before they happen, all new techniques just entering the operational systems.  

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. Although it is that which is used by all people, it is not necessarily able to be easily articulated. It consists of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata and mental models which are deeply ingrained in us and which we often take for granted. The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it is extremely difficult for people to share each other's thinking processes.

Tacit knowledge has been described as “know-how” – as opposed to “know-what” (facts), “know-why” (science), or “know-who” (networking). It involves learning and skill but not in a way that can be written down. On this account knowing-how or embodied knowledge is characteristic of the expert, who acts, makes judgments, and so forth without explicitly reflecting on the principles or rules involved. The expert works without having a theory of his or her work; he or she just performs skillfully without deliberation or focused attention. Apprentices, for example, work with their mentors and learn craftsmanship not through language but by observation, imitation, and practice.

The study goes on to provide examples of the impact of this shortage for a midsized $500m complaint to be $4.6m loss annually:

Food for thought!!! Tacit Knowledge must be captured in a form that new users can take actionable decisions in a reliable and effective way, through knowledge and experience moving from the experts to the systems in a sustainable approach that can evolve.

Multiplying Value of Expert Community interacting with the Multiple Operational Team

Last week I talked about harnessing the experienced community for knowledge management, the concept enablement to contribute through "crowd source". This week I would like to expand the concept with the virtual expert team and how critical enabling this community of knowledge and experience to be empowered to work in real time with the plant, operational staff, enabling real-time decisions.

In January we introduced the operational landscape in 2020, where projected tenures in roles or locations to be below 2.4 years, (I believe will be less than this in many areas). The other notable observation was that 1 in 3 of the workforce will be in project work vs. careers, temporarily engaged to supply expertise and skill to a project, or situation. Giving rise to a "vacuum" knowledge effect when they leave, often causing an uncertainty, lack of confidence in making decisions.

Introducing the challenges of enabling decisions, with lack of experience.

Companies talk about their experts either in the company or in partners, who are stretched and how they keep "taking the expert to the problem" and the need to transition to "taking the problem to expert".

During the last two weeks I have been engaged with a couple of large distributed projects, in environments where there is 20% turn over of expertise from trade’s people, operational, maintenance, process experts and staff. The growth in companies investigating or implementing "operational centers" is indicative of the challenge as the experts can be located in a central location, and interact with multiple sites. In theory, this works, in practice the challenge is the expert could be on site, could be traveling, and often in order to retain the expert he must be able to contribute in a location of their choice.

Companies are also looking to multiply the value from these experts requiring they are not restricted to only contributing to their local plant, or teams. As companies look to align and manage the end to end value chain these experts could be in  operations, planning, maintenance, engineering, process, IT, control quality, etc., become critical assets.

The concept of significantly reducing the "time to performance/ expertise" is key built on a number of foundational approaches, all possible today:

1/ Knowledge systems that enable natural contribution with knowledge management to gather value and maintain the value leveraging technologies that harness "crowd sourcing", of the expert community.

2/Embedding of operational processes shifting to "intelligent work" with context information for declines and recommended actions all associated in the work item. Gathering these operational best practices from the experts, at all levels in the company and embedding into the operational system for consistent behavior to situations.

3/ Virtual expert communities that can be notified in real-time, access status and information in consistent and trusted context. Viewing the same information as the plant operational staff, but being able to apply their own analysis, experience and expertise to share with the plant operational workers for decisions. Key is the expert is working from where ever he is, on what ever device, and can collaborate, share and contribute. The expert could be in a company or a supply, but is part of the "virtual trusted expert" community seeing only the information they need, to be easily accessible to the plant user, and no effort to access.

So as a situation develops, a plant worker can focus on that situation, and see all the real virtual experts for that situation who are on line and their skill. They can chat, they can share, by dragging and dropping, and they can talk, all in a couple of key strikes or gestures. This collaboration must be natural, combined with core trust of the expert, and system that the advice from the expert is relevant to the current situation. Also, the ability to call on the knowledge system for like situations and draw information easily.

Now the experts are contributing to multiple sites, and situations without traveling and contributing to knowledge capture at the same time. This whole concept is paradigm shift in knowledge and expertise, but is the foundation for companies to be able accommodate this transitional operational landscape.

Bring the Problem to the Expert vs Expert to the Problem!!!!! Virtual Expert Communities are required!

 “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.” Mike Miselowski Futurist

This is the concept of flexible operational teams, and the ability unify into a collaborative and sharing environment the people on plants with those outside the plant, and even outside the company or country, who provide expertise. As I continued my travels last week, I engaged with two clients in different industries one in Oil and the other in mining who have remote sites, and the need to bring expertise from elsewhere in their organization to the remote site. These sites are extremely remote, and will involve a day or so travel to get there, and age on the site is reducing and so with it the experience. Both companies talked about getting expertise to site, decisions support centers or often collaborative walls or environments.

Another company in oil and gas last year summed up the problem when he described his team of 35 experts doing 1300+ flights in a year that it was “taking the expert to the problem” and it causing the loss of the expert team as they looked for alternative jobs than living away from family. Also, the response to the problem was delayed, and in many cases the problem did not justify the cost in travel or wasted expert’s time in travel. So his comment,  we need change to a situation where we “take the problem to expert”.

Another company in the metals industry is implementing this on a global basis a community environment across their global experts  with the:

Vision

• Break Down Communication Barriers between Continents
• Break Down Communication Barriers between Plants
• Break Down Cultural/Language Barriers and Inhibitions
• Break Down Network Barriers Between Computer Systems
• Create One Secure Global Network accessible by whole Expert Community
• Standardized system with common variables, standard calculations and standard names for data points for all the like assets / process across the companies worldwide sites.

Goal:

• Share Experiences with Live & Historical Data
• Instant online Information Exchange For Problem Solving
• Create a Powerful Knowledge Database
• Create a Community For Helping Each Other

So how do you make this a reality?

How do you take experts on the other side of the world, who have not been to a site, and enable them to contribute expertise on a subject, e.g. a particular process on an asset type, to a worker sitting on site. If the expert went to the site, or called the site he would ask a lot of questions on data, status and history to understand the situation before he can contribute.

 So the above company is trying to enable a “facebook” concept across the company pockets of expertise and sites that will actively engage the experts with the operational workers and make an active community, breaking down all the traditional boundaries that prevent this.

To do this they need to:

• Capture the historical data, current state from the existing systems.
• They need validate this data to make it trust worthy in their case 100+ rules of integrity
• They need transform the data into standard measures and states for that process/ asset so that the variables mean the same no matter which plant the expert engages. 
• The need an operational experience both at the plant, the roaming worker and the virtual expert that naturally enables collaboration in realtime as well as sharing.

All through the last couple of weeks travel, this alignment and empowerment of local people with remote is of significant concern. The tradition Control Room  systems today do not make this part time, transient engagement natural, and it is only by changing the solution to a team/ community, which is available at the local workers finger tips this can become a reality.

This is not something new, people have been trying to implimentation something to enable remote support for years, often throwing technologies such as PC Anywhere etc at it to allow access, and now with the introduction of social media increasing that. Most of it has focused on remote operations from an Operational Center on shore or in a better location. The real step change happens when an active community is developed of experts who collaborate and build knowledge while directly collaborating with the site teams as seen below.

 

Below you can see examples of the Offshore oil industry especially in the north sea what they have been doing while this is a significant step it is only a step, vs and a significant jump to a community.

Yes,  it lines up with Mike Miselowski’s comment of “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.”

Leveraging the social media functions, but in a secure way, that understands security access level, plant control access and location of the people to enable correct engagement levels. So we should not be designing an operation HMI, control room experience , remote access focused on just the plant and process, consideration must be taken how collaboration, and sharing of information will happen in a near real time manner!!  Not just adding messaging, key is making the data and information consistent and trust worthy in near real time, as well as having inbuilt knowledge capture systems.