The Changing Landscape of Supervisory Systems from HMI, / Common Control Room, to “Distributed Multi Point Operational Landscapes” !!!!!

For the last couple of years we have seen the changing supervisory solutions emerging, that will require a rethink of the underlying systems, and how they implemented and the traditional HMI, Control architectures will not satisfy! Certainly in upstream Oil and Gas, Power, Mining, Water and Smart Cities we have seen a significant growth in the Integrated Operational Center (IOC) concept. Where multiple sites control comes back into one room, where planning and operations can collaborate in real-time. Initially companies just virtualize their existing systems back, and then they standardize the experience for operational alignment and effectiveness, and then they simulation, and model, not many have got to this last step.

But in the last couple of weeks I have sat in discussions where people talk about this central IOC, which is key. When you start peeling back the “day in the life of operations” the IOC is only the “quarterback” in a flexible operational team of different roles, contributing different levels of operational. Combined with dynamic operational landscape, where the operational span of control of operational assets, is dynamically changing all the time. The question is what does the system look like, do the traditional approaches apply?

When you look at the operational landscape below, you can see 100s of operational control points where humans will have to interact with the system, with different spans of control, and operational points will be manned and unmanned on regular basis.

Traditionally companies have used isolated (siloed) HMI, DCS workstation controls at the facilities, and then others at the regional operational centers and then others at the central IOC, and stitched them together. Now you add the dynamic nature of the business with changing assets, and now a mobile workforce we have addition operational stations that of the mobile (roaming worker). All must see the same state, with scope to their span of control, and accountability to control. 

Since the 1990’s, control system technology has enabled a flexible delivery of work, where workers can support both “normal” and “abnormal” situations from multiple locations, either in the same room or across the world.  This mechanism has to be reliable, easy to implement, and easy to maintain.  Some customers have applied this mechanism to more than 5 different “points of operation”, which range from equipment panels, mobile devices and local control rooms to regional and national operations centers.

The requirements have become the following:

1.        “Transparency of Trusted Operational State”: with real-time operational actionable decisions becoming key, the ability to monitor, the system raise the situation automatically through operational, asset self-awareness. So there is transparency to whole operational landscape situational state.
2.        “Point of operation”: the implementation must support a configuration where one of the multiplepoints of operation uniquely can operate, which includes responding to alarms.
3.        Simultaneous “point of operation”: the implementation must also support a configuration where more than 1 worker canoperate, which is rarely more than 2.
4.        “Span of operation” flexibility: each “point of operation” can be an individual PID, start/stop or device, or it can be a broader “span” of operation.  This “span” must be assignable in a flexible manner, where the “span” can be adjusted to become narrower or broader.  Example conditions include night time or overhaul conditions for some operations.
5.        Ownership visibility: each possible point of operation must have a simple and clearly visible indication that it doesn’t have ownership, and reinforced indication when it does have the ownership. Clear visibility across the operational landscape as who has point of control, and as a team accountability is understood to respond to the situation promptly.
6.        Management of alarms: it is essential for safety, legal, environmental and health requirements that new alarms animate, suppress/shelve, annunciate and trigger display changes only at the point(s) of operation, and only the workers using the point(s) of operation can acknowledge or silence new alarms. This means all alarms from asset to process, operational, but scope of alarm responsibility is aligned with span of control, but as a team there are “no blind spots” and alarm, situational awareness is escalated based on responsiveness, and situation. Assumption of control,and someone doing something must be removed.
7.        Manage of operational events across different points of operation;Example operators want to be able to set operational limits/events across different operations? How is this managed and governed?
8.         IT/OT seamless integration;Operating, monitoring, trending, alarming and integration with other islands of information to enable the teams to make informed decisions.
9.         Reliability, upgradable, cyber security, network architecture, cloud;
10.      One problem cannot bring down the whole operations!!
11.      Assignment of operation: an authorized worker must have an easy and reliable means to assign and adjust the spans of operation.  The following diagram shows examples of transferring the span of operation between a roving user, a local control room, and a remote operations center:

In the above diagram, Areas or Sites “A” through “D” require supervision by different users or by the same user in different locations.  This scenario also applies to multiple operations consoles or desks within the same room.  The span of operation varies with the operations situations.  The span of operation can overlap among multiple users and multiple locations.

We need one system, but multiple operational points, and layouts, awareness so the OPERATIONAL TEAM can operate in unison, enabling effective operational work. Below is a high-level diagram of the operational team by the situation, you will have multiple skills in each situation, people will move through the situational state, but the diagram shows the merging operational work characteristics.

This emerging dynamic multi-point operational landscape is big topic that I will explore over the next few weeks, as traditional thinking, traditional architectures, and traditional implementations will not enable the transformation in operational work needed to satisfy effective agile operations.

Operations Innovation & Transformation – Operations Control Loops, Aligning the Operational Roles in Industrial Landscape

Constantly I am asked on how to make the operational workforce effective, key is the alignment of the different roles. Traditionally the user interfaces, the targets, kpis each role has worked to have been disconnected, a good company aligns them on paper at least, most even miss this step, with each role setting based on their view on what success is. A classical good example of role alignment is in F1 motor racing where the engineering team and driver are aligned on winning the race, if they were not the driver would drive as fast he can with little care to car to finish, and engineering would advise driver to drive in a way that avoids stress on the car or they build it to last, with alignment they aligning the driving and engineering to finish a race first and no more.

In today's dynamic workplace and market these need change in a dynamic mode at all levels, driving the rapid miss alignment of KPIs and targets.   

The 4 quadrants described in the article “Operations Innovation & Transformation – the 4 Types” positions the upper right quadrant as a strategy for governing business processes and teams of human assets in a new way. 

In the upper right hand quadrant, managers and supervisors use consistent measures and business processes to adjust targets for specialists and other workers, using the industrial automation concept of a “control loop”.  One example is where managers negotiate the next day’s production targets each day using the same business process for all specialists and industrial locations.

In the upper left diagram, supervisors use visual management to observe the ability of teams to navigate targets and constraint in order to improve team performance and adjust targets based on team capability.  This method is used in conjunction with Value Chain Optimization and Fleet Management, and these are in the left quadrants of operations innovation.  These are described in separate articles.  This visual management is used to reduce risk and evolve performance of multiple sites for the same operating shift, and multiple shifts for the same site.

In the upper right diagram, the supervisors use this business process (simplified) as a means to consistently govern targets so that a variety of activity, including different sites, shifts and responsibilities, can be adjusted at the same time and in a coordinated fashion.

Another example is where operators use visual management to address performance challenges that affect the business.

In the upper left diagram, a combination of organizational change management and visual management which helps teams to trust themselves and understand hourly operations performance with a business context.   Dark blue diamonds show a baseline for one month, and the unit cost variation is high, even at high output.  This operation has agility – a 2:1 range in throughput, and normally unit cost should be lower at higher throughput (due to higher efficiency of utilities equipment).  Magenta squares show the results of the first month; unit cost variation is still high, but most of the performance is near minimum cost.  Yellow triangles show the results of the second month, with excellent results.

In the upper right diagram, key performance indicators (KPI’s) and Operating Indicators (OI’s) are arranged together so that performance challenges at all levels are addressed in a timely and consistent manner.  For each level of the organization, lagging and leading indicators with business and operations context are linked together. “WIG” is an acronym for Wildly Important Goals, which helps to maintain focus on the most import performance measures among numerous other indicators.  KPI’s are appropriately developed from the top down, and originate with business goals and measures; OI’s are appropriately developed from the bottom up, and originate with operations targets and measures.

The results have been spectacular, including double-digit improvements in efficiency, first-quartile industry performance, and more.

No longer can we have different roles not aligned and decisions in real-time at all levels requires adjustments but alignment not just top down, but bottom up due to a situation, but approvals in real time and adjustments in real time. So workflow and linking is required so governance of decisions and actions is maintained. As seen in the diagram below. Are linking these, are you looking at the Dynamic Performance Measure approach with measure, indication and notification all aligned to the level, time, and approach.