Factory of the Future 2014 centers on Workers ! Tacit knowledge is key not just explicit knowledge!

Sorry for missing last week, just in too many planes. But time to read and reflect on points, and I was discussing an opportunity in Korea with a colleague. Some in the customers think tank asked him to present at a high level the landscape of manufacturing in the future 2020 +. Not surprising to me he centered the new world of manufacturing and industry around the “worker and human decision making/ action”, going out to the processes and then production assets.

I was then reading some background material around Horizon 2020 call for tenders relative to “Factory of the Future” driven by European Commission.

Under Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, for 2014-2020, the new contractual Public-Private Partnership (PPP) on Factories of the Future (FoF) will build on the successes of the FP7 Factories of the Future PPP.
The FoF multi-annual roadmap for the years 2014-2020 sets a vision and outlines routes towards high added value manufacturing technologies for the factories of the future, which will be clean, highly performing, environmental friendly and socially sustainable. The priorities have been agreed within the wide community of stakeholders across Europe, after extensive public consultation.

The interesting focus of this year of the program was around the worker, both in increasing the effectiveness of the different workers but also attractiveness of industry to entice the new generation of workers to want to engage in this industry. This has been a challenge for the last 15 to 20 years where the industrial sector has been seen as slow, and of limited innovation. But “the times are a changing” and innovation is happening fast, and with the acceleration of the industry down the “internet of things” path (as the biggest potential value growth of this approach is in industry with it’s millions of devices) so will come innovation.  

This year’s Factories of the Future work program includes a call for proposals that address increasing the attractiveness for workers. The scope of proposals could have included:

• Methods and tools for design or adaptation of facilities and technologies to support productivity, well being, and worker autonomy in production

• New methods and technologies supporting knowledge capture and team interaction to enhance work satisfaction, safety, and ergonomics

• Integration of innovative production technologies supporting increased productivity and flexibility, and

• Training and educational aspects to raise job attractiveness for young people and the elderly

The call text specifically mentioned scheduling of work and design of work places, adaptive technology such as augmented reality, addressing tasks holistically, and production systems ensuring efficient transfer of knowledge and information. New systems must support the “tacit” knowledge of the worker in the process of controlling advanced machinery and production lines.

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. While difficult to articulate, this cognitive dimension of tacit knowledge shapes the way we perceive the world.

In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge possessed only by an individual and difficult to communicate to others via words and symbols. Therefore, an individual can acquire tacit knowledge without language. Apprentices, for example, work with their mentors and learn craftsmanship not through language but by observation, imitation, and practice.

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.

Tacit knowledge is typically difficult to capture and transfer from one worker to another, so if systems could be designed to do so, it could minimize loss of critical tacit knowledge and thus help relieve the skill crunch related to the aging workforce. At a macro level, this could increase the industry’s capacity to innovate and capture knowledge. In the concept of Operational Manufacturing Interfaces the ability to capture, embed evolve operational procedures, process based upon experience is key. With this there is a basis for companies to build and evolve through consistent and optimized operational actions aligned to decisions in the NOW, providing the foundation for "Operational Innovation". This is not natural in the traditional HMI, Industrial Workstation and in the way design our industrial systems for the last 20 years, it is time change!

It would indeed be very valuable to adapt the work place, work scheduling, interactions with production technology and documentation to the skill level and mental and physical state of the worker. It would also be a major advance to be able to adapt the decision support content and mode of communication to both the state of the production line or factory and to the state of the worker.

It is pleasing to see the continued evolution and alignment around the thinking of workers, how "operational Innovation" can become a natural part of the systems.

Knowledge a Key Component of Modern/ Future Operational System: "Data vs Information vs Knowledge Understanding the Difference"

 

For the last couple of weeks,  I have discussed in this blog the concept of “expertise, knowledge,” how to multiply this, and why harnessing and bringing knowledge as a natural part of your Operational Architecture is key to dealing with the changing operational human assets due to age, culture, length of time in role, digital.

I was at a customer on a white board and discussing some of these concepts, and I realized that there was confusion between DATA, INFORMATION and KNOWLEDGE.

Sitting over coffee afterwards I agreed that this was not uncommon, and actually comes down to the fact that many people have not had the time to think through what does their operational landscape look like in 2020. That afternoon I was reviewing another customer in Europe vision, and they had a set of functional maps relative to activities on how they expect to operate in 2020 and what is needed, and reflecting on this knowledge is the foundational part built out of many parts.  

I was reading this article from Tom Davenport at Harvard on how knowledge workers collaborate (his book is called Working Knowledge)

, thought it is worth bringing up in the blog I have extracted some points from an article  "Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know" By Thomas H. Davenport and Lawrence Prusak

 

   

Firstly this comment on why knowledge is key:

“Knowledge, by contrast, can provide a sustainable advantage. Eventually, competitors can almost always match the quality and price of a market leader's current product or service. By the time that happens, through, the knowledge-rich, knowledge-managing company will have moved on to a new level of quality, creativity, or efficiency. The knowledge advantage is sustainable because it generates increasing returns and continuing advantages. Unlike material assets, which decrease as they are used, knowledge assets increase with use: Ideas breed new ideas, and shared knowledge stays with the giver while it enriches the receiver. The potential for

new ideas arising from the stock of knowledge in any firm is practically limitless -- particularly if the people in the firm are given opportunities to think, to learn, and to talk with one another.”

 

Then the difference between Data/ Information/ Knowledge.

 

Data is a set of discrete, objective facts about events. In an organizational context, data is most usefully described as structured records of transactions. When a customer goes to a gas

station and fills the tank of his car, that transaction can be partly described by data: when he made the purchase; how many gallons he bought; how much he paid. The data tells nothing about why he went to that service station and not another one, and can't predict how likely he is to come back.

 

Unlike data, information has meaning -- the "relevance and purpose" of Drucker's definition. Not only does it potentially shape the receiver, it has a shape: it is organized to some purpose. Data becomes information when its creator adds meaning. We transform data into information by adding value in various ways. Let's consider several important methods, all

beginning with the letter C:

• Contextualized: we know for what purpose the data was gathered
• Categorized: we know the units of analysis or key components of the data

• Calculated: the data may have been analyzed mathematically or statistically
• Corrected: errors have been removed from the data
• Condensed: the data may have been summarized in a more concise form

 

Knowledge derives from information as information derives from data. If information is to become knowledge, humans must do virtually all the work. This transformation happens through such C words as:

• Comparison: how does information about this situation compare to other situations we have known?
• Consequences: what implications does the information have for decisions and actions?
• Connections: how does this bit of knowledge relate to others?
• Conversation: what do other people think about this information?

The article goes into a lot more depth, but I think it is this transformation from information to knowledge that is key as it enables the all important action to be taken. Too often we get caught up in hype and miss the reason why we are capturing data and information it is really to enable faster, and more efficient decisions and actions.

So this leads to the concept of “Intelligent work” which has the information in a knowledge form, with experience and associated actions, the leaders will design their systems to centered on this approach.  

 

Rotating Staff, Worker Retention becomes key Design Considerations

After 2 weeks in Asia, and the 2 weeks before travelling Australia and USA, the concern of worker retention, and the different attitude of the Gen  Y, rotating work force is of real concern.  In China they already shifted to an educated GenY late Gen x population of workers keen to learn, jump to experience rapidly. With this comes ambition to change, and experience so many discussions talked centered on worker retention.

This discussion will continue to grow as people realize the reality that people will take on roles for shorter times, rotating locations, or advancing the ladder, moving from company to the company as opportunities arise. In software; we saw this in the “.com” era, where we saw a 20% turn over, but with that we saw  evolution in the work environment.  The idea as attract and retain people, with both interesting work, and an environment which has services and facilities to make people want to stay.

The same is starting to happen in the industrial sector with the “Integrated Operational Center”, bringing operators and experts into environments that and better for families, and working, as well as enhancing  collaboration, increasing agility. As we go through the next 5 to 10 years in the transition from “Baby boomer” and Gen X to Gen Y, the learning of a role, situation must be different. It must enable:

·         Self-Education

·         The ability to Ask and learn, this means knowledge systems at the finger tips no matter what device, location, or situation.

·          To learn on the job, “Youtubes” and knowledge embedded into operational experience

·         The ability to access experience through collaboration with experts no matter where they.

As stated in earlier blogs; this must become a part of the design of Operational, process, maintenance and operational management experiences. Not an afterthought, but just a natural configuration as people do today with alarms, they should configure knowledge access. If you are sitting designing operational experiences at the moment, sit back and allow yourself time to understand how you will add the learning experience so that the user will be able to become experienced and capable in an efficient time.

The two countries I am seeing this change most pronounced are China and South Africa, as they both have an educated Gen Y coming through more rapidly than in most countries to fill a void of Baby boomer and Gen X. The demand for a new generation of experience will grow, and Advanced Process Graphics will help, but experience must be embedded.

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.