Operations Innovation & Transformation – Flexible Teams

The 4 quadrants described in the article “Operations Innovation & Transformation – the 4 Types” positions the lower right quadrant as a strategy for using a team of human assets in a new way.

In this quadrant, teams of specialists (with the same or different areas of specialization) are grouped to provide value improvement to a group of physical assets, and the group of physical assets can be used as a “fleet” or as a “chain”.  This is much more than a passive “help desk”.  One example is where specialists use real-time benchmarking and other tools, working with new business processes with the physical assets and the dedicated workers, to unlock value of themselves and the physical assets.

In the following diagrams, a team is located in different sites at the moment.  This example has 4 physical assets, A through D, and specialist 1 is mobile (working from a hotel, home or in an office within the enterprise), and specialist 3 is in an operations center.  In the left-hand diagram, specialist 1 is supporting or improving the performance of physical assets A and B, and specialist 3 handles the physical assets C and D.  In the right-hand diagram, a change in performance in asset B triggers a workflow and specialist 2, who is on call or is assigned by the team supervisor, handles asset B.  Specialist 1 does not receive workflows for asset B unless the team supervisor changes the assignments.  Overlapping assignments are also used, especially when multiple disciplines or specializations are involved.  Both use the same integrated and federated information, and these specialists become champions to help all like operations and equipment improve performance.

In the following diagram, a workflow “brings the work to the worker”, using the same integrated and federated information, on-line performance applications, and human workflow.  The supervisor(s) can easily change assignments, and the workflow can include escalation, which can be guided by the performance applications’ output compared to thresholds (simple calculations of time to reach a threshold).

The strength of these workflow is to help specialists intervene early enough, using standardized and trustworthy data, focused on trends.  This processing of information is automated as much as possible.

The specialists spend most of their time working on improvements instead of processing data and analyzing previous performance problems, and their decisions.  As a result, major overhauls are safely and reliably delayed, equipment performance is improved, and operators trust the equipment more to help increase performance at each physical asset.

Holacracy a New Way of Work can it Apply in Industrial Operational Space

I have spent the weekend listening a reading more on Holacracy, (http://www.holacracy.org/) and attended a training two weeks ago. While the concepts are familiar to me in that it follows the AGILE Software thinking and approach to putting a framework in place that enable :

·         Agility through understanding where you are and what you have to do so you can make changes

·         That enables empowerment of the team, individuals

·         The distribution of authority to enable empowerment to execute

The whole approach makes total sense to the new operational transformation environment, and I believe could be applied to manufacturing. Providing a framework for the more efficient execution, planning of work across an organization.

If you look at the Agile case studies from John Deere where they applied agile , top to bottom the results speak for them selves:

While agile is applied in the software work, what we seeing in industrial operations, is not a transformation in technology (yes it is being enable by technology) but it really is a transformation in the way companies plan, execute, work. This work could be planned work from a business side, to work generated on the plant that needs to followed up a resolved, shifting workers from an average of 35% planned work in a day to greater than 70%.

Holacracy and Agile are systems that transform the way in which work is planned, and executed, with constant empowerment of people to change and evolve the system.

As I look into both frameworks and try to apply them in my own life, I cannot see why they would be a possibility for transformation of culture to achieve better work in the industrial work space.

It is important to note both systems are aligned and they are a framework, they require discipline and execution within the framework to enable the agility. Too often in manufacturing and the industrial space people put technology and systems in as “silver bullets” and expect them to solve everything. But they are only tools, there needs to be an operational cultural transformation as well and combined you gain real change.

If you have not heard about Holacracy and are looking at a transformation in the way your company works have a look at it.  http://www.holacracy.org/, there are many You tubes and discussions on it!

Why this time round the Smart Strategies (plants, airports etc.) have a chance to succeed!

Too often as a technologist and presenter of where operational systems are going, people come up to me afterwards and ask are you grounded? We have seen people talk about Intelligent, smart manufacturing strategies before but they have failed.

Yes we have had a number of significant attempts with technology and “lights out manufacturing” and various levels of MES/ operational systems, including the rollout of significant ERP programs. But there are some key walk away learnings. 20 / 20 vision is a good reflection:

Since 1995, projects have failed because:

• They started as technology projects
• They were implemented as technology roadmaps
•  Insufficient organization change management
•  Insufficient innovation
• Insufficient integration of people, process, strategy and technology
•  Innovation fatigue

The key with above observation is that too often these programs have been lead from within and based upon applying a technology, expecting the technology to transform the company. The technology goes in often not driven from operations but from automation engineering, or IT, and really it does not have buy in from the plant or “edge” operational people.

Since 1995, projects have succeeded because:

• They started as work transformation projects
• They were implemented as holistic combinations of people, process, strategy and technology
• Senior management actively sponsors the “new way of doing work”
• The Covey “high performing organization” based on their “4 disciplines of execution” are applied

The success of these programs is that they “operational improvement/ transformation driven” but leverage the latest technologies and processes to implement. With this comes the cultural evolution, the buy in from all levels especially “edge operational workers”. There are clear “wild” goals on a direction improvement, and measures put in place to make sure the direction is moving correctly. These are also not projects they are recognized as programs and journeys where assessment, tuning and cultural shift must happen.

 Is there a “silver Bullet” of technology that will take you through this transformation, I say NO, but due to many “planets lining up at the moment” around operational agility, the flat world and transformation of both the workforce and workspace. The operational transformation journey companies are on is been driven by operational requirement to change, and everyone recognizes this, and there are significant technologies with mobility, IOT, and cloud that enable different architectures and solutions to generated faster and aligned.

It is an exciting time of transformation, but always understand why you doing something, and you understand the measures to make sure you are on the correct path. 

A Different Approach to Design Operational Systems is Needed!!!

I have had the opportunity to review some new strategies of some companies are taking to designing their systems for operations in 2020 to 2030, and I am pleased to see they have taken not just a technology approach. But really turn around and looked at “who they will execute work across their value supply chain” focusing on how they will have operate in this period then how they will be executing their work to achieve this.

Now technology is key as it will enable vision to be achieved in “agile “ world, while making it a sustainable evolution.

The diagram below illustrates our current summary of change in thinking needed in approach the bigger picture programs.

Traditional world of application to application (project) approach and technologies, and effectively technology lead vs operational lead. This does lead to different implementations, a focus on features vs operational experience and efficiency. Many of these projects are focused on improving the process efficiency, vs the product.

The approach we are recommending and leading is a more holistic approach that is “operational” lead so how companies will need to run / execute their business on a longer term, and day to day basis. Focusing now on product delivery band the correct time, at location, at the correct quality and margin. But then instead of focusing on the how, the recommendation is to look at the required work activities that need to be executed these could be automated or human intervention. Understand the end to end process/ procedures and work required to efficiently deliver the product at the correct time, location , quality and margin. 

Eventually it come back to technology and systems, but now driven with an operational focus, and it will be implemented in a way that enables sustained evolution / innovation of those operational procedures as the business changes.

It is important to understand that the world is not about short term solutions, (yes they want quick wins but sustainable solutions) we accept that operational procedures must change with the business, and the systems/ platforms must accommodate this change. This has not been the case in the past, and the other accommodation must be dynamically changing user base, where experience cannot be assumed.

Next week I will continue this thought pattern as this aligns with what we seeing in the IT/OT convergence where the leading companies are putting strong operational leadership over IT and the convergence so all programs (made up aligned smaller projects) deliver aligned operational value in a shorter time frame. 

Why Companies must Reduce Complexity!!!

Happy New Year to all of you. 2015 dawns over the water here, and I have a chance to review many articles and and time step back and think. That is what the holidays provide for me a time of family time and reflection and direction.
In the last half of 2014 we saw a significant increase in companies wanting, engaging with with us on "operational System, Operational Environment in 2020 - 25". These were not esquires these were real engagements where companies were reflecting on their systems relative to the new operational landscape we are all facing over the next 10 years.I suspect that 2015 will continue this trend and different programs been taken by companies to guide investments, and technological adoptions to provide them with a foundation to address "operational transformation". Certainly from with in Schneider _Electric we focused on this transformation, and accelerating platforms, Products, applications that will enable operational systems for 2020-25. Addressing the increasing complexity of systems, without increasing operational process complexity is fundamental.

But I thought I would start the new year blog with a great article that I read through the holidays on companies addressing complexity. One of challengers we all face is the new operational landscape with changing products, a flat world of competition and changing workforce, we have a tendency to
think and create complexity is increasing value. This article by Neil Smith allows a good "step back" of the need stay focused on simplicity and this must apply to operational processes and systems, if we are going to be able to absorb change and compete.

So have a read, and lets make sure we do not loose focus on this fundamental objective of simplicity is key to "operational excellence"!!

http://changethis.com/manifesto/95.06.ReduceComplexity/pdf/95.06.ReduceComplexity.pdf

The Perfect Storm in Industrial Operations = New Paradigm in Operational Landscape

I decided to revisit a blog that I have enhanced from over a year as preparation for a discussion I have been having with many people in the last 2 weeks around "realtime Information Platform" vs "Historian" which I enter that discussion in the next blog. Too many people are looking at one aspect.

The most significant disruption in industrial operational strategy is happening in this post GFC (global financial crisis) era.  This is focused on determining an operational execution environment which enables timely contributions by the operational team for sustained high-performance plant execution.  The focus is currently on operational processes, but this will shift quickly to driving a new operational experience which enables a new operational execution plan. Traditional user interfaces will not “cut it” both in products, or the way they have been implemented.

A common thread around the world is the operational personnel challenge, especially the finding of people to replace the existing “baby boomer generation” and lack of experience available in the market.

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

•        Ageing workforce: the significant number of highly experienced operations, maintenance, process workers who will retire in the next 5 to 10 years.  Some mangers in “oil and gas upstream” talk about the fact that 80% of their current team will be gone in 5 years.
•          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, and a transition from “worker” to “knowledge worker”.  This also means that they have much more responsibility.  As one customer recently stated, traditionally they had an operator cover 5 to 10 wells; this was fine when you have 100 wells which lasted 20 years, but in the next 5 years he stated “we will have 20,000 + wells, but we will not have 2,000 operators”.
•          The rotating operational person means “time to experience” is shorter than ever:the experienced generation is retiring and transitioning to an age group 20 years their junior, and there is a new factor that people are not staying in their role or location longer than a year.  One company stated 10 years ago that people were in a role approximately 5 years, but now they are seeing rotations of 8 months.
•         Transition to digital native worker, with very different expectations, causes challenges with worker retention: The new generation is “digitally native”; they expect access to knowledge, they expect “touch experience”, they expect collaboration from anywhere, and they expect to learn on the fly.

Stepping back and looking at all of these vectors; we have significant disruptions for those in charge of industrial / manufacturing operational execution strategies.

Addressing that significant disruption will require a combination of techniques:

•          A new generation of user interface products with more than interface capability, but embedded knowledge access, experience access, actionable procedures and natural intelligence, really empower the operational workers in all roles.
•          A new operational experience design.  Notice that the traditional enabler -HMI (Human Machine Interface) does not express this new design: as it is a true “operational experience” that goes through the “day in the life” of the new generation of operational knowledge workers.
•          New alignment across the different systems, plant applications and sites to align context, actions. Keeping the sites, applications and systems “loosely coupled but tightly aligned”.

Why?  Because today is not about Control Rooms; it is about agility and timely decisions, and this requires the “Flexible Operational Team” that works naturally together to leverage their experience, in the NOW to have decisions of all sorts made in a timely manner (often earlier than “now” to prevent instead of react).

The above diagram shows the concept of Flexible Operational Team, where at the bottom the traditional User Interfaces (UI’s) would have been permanently manned.  These UI’s are becoming transiently manned, but all functions relative to the zone of responsibility are available.  The more central operational centers (increasingly remote) will have a “quarterback” operational controller who is calling the shots, with a transient in-plant team of different skill sets, and a virtual team of experts usually external to the plant.  The in plant team executes activities that must be done locally, e.g. Inspections, maintenance, and certain manual operations, and the virtual team are experts across the world who can be tapped on for experience and knowledge to work with the controller or the in-plant team.

The above requirements is driving customers to look at the concept of “Enterprise Control”, providing the unification, and evolution of existing systems to achieve the alignment required to enable the concept of “agility thru Operational alignment and decisions in the NOW”.

The Invensys Enterprise Control Vision is to provide a set of capabilities that enables customers to achieve "Operational Excellence” through three strategies:

•          Empowerment of Operational People

Operational personnel (e.g. Operators, process engineers, process experts, maintenance, quality, production management) are empowered real-time decisions through operational awareness, access to experience, collaboration, and best practices in a proactive system, to perform multiple tasks, in flexible roles, in multiple locations.

•          Unification through Federation across assets, applications and systems

Align the different assets and processes across the operational management layer (of the traditional automation levels) so that the industrial operations are more agile (can change equipment configuration and use of the equipment much faster and much tighter coordination).  These assets that reside within a plant, within a process and across multiple sites are aligned to business and operational processes and require consistent measures and information.  Each of the existing applications/ controls continue to run, but their information and visualisation models are aligned, and communication happens with orchestration execution, in order for the Operational Process to execute in the most timely and effective manner.

•          Built on a Sustainable platform of capability so that the system has longevity to evolve.

Enterprise Control will be implemented in stages and evolve in scope, breadth and functionality through its lifetime at each customer installation, which could be 20 years.  The system has been engineered and architected in a way that enables this evolution to occur in a sustainable way and caters to changing engineering teams and technologies.

New technology products will enable the above operational/automation paradigms, satisfying the changes in the market and workforce, compelling all of us to think and engineer differently as we evolve our operational systems.

I am hoping this refresh and discussion answers many of the questions people have asked me lately, as it is not just about the ageing workforce, the transition, the whole workforce culture and approach to work will be different in 5 to 10 years, and it really is a transformation to "smart work" in the industrial operational space. 

Operational Work, Accountability, and the evolution to Activity Design is Fundamental

As I toured customers in North America, Australia and Middle East over the last month, the discussions around operational / supervisory/ automation design have come up. Over and over again the core theme becomes evident that of "activities/tasks" become a core to design vs. the stations and interfaces.

One customer broke their plant up into logical operational/process cells, and then defined not the User Interfaces, and interfaces but the "actions, decisions " that need to be made to operational and manage these cells. The commentary was different from the old days where they would have defined the user interface (HMI, DCS workstation) now they were think "tasks". They believed that they would have "universal" stations on plant floors that could access all "tasks" so roaming people could just go to the closest station to take action, after being notified on their mobile device.

They had made a decision that they did not want control actions to take place from a mobile device, but all information relative to the situation and "task/ activity" can be seen on a mobile device, this is a fair decision.

The clear thinking in the design is that

1.  No longer is control only local, they have a central control, and roaming workers which all need to see situation and act on " tasks/ activities"
2. That their operational differentiation in the market is down to their operational processes/ procedures not technology or User Interface.
3. That these Operational procedures that make up these " tasks/activities" will evolve, and you are not certain who person, role, device, or location this " task/ activity" will be acted upon.

It was good to see the logical, free thinking, and we were able then to go into the design of what makes up an "activity/task." With the key elements being

1. trigger condition
2. notification, including escalation to relevant team through the activity lifetime
3. decision support information
4. relevant action operational procedure to resolve which could go across multiple people based upon the Resolution Path.

The diagram below shows the seven detail core elements, key is dealing with "emergent work" vs "planned work".

The other point that came up in the discussions was "accountability" so that actions and who owns the decision and action is clear eliminating confusion. " Governance" of the procedure so that it can evolve and managed over time so that it can be tuned, evolved in value over time.

It was good to see a shift in design thinking, but it was clear these are thought leaders, most people in the forums were still traditional approach, yet they talked about the changing workforce. I wonder how you can design a system based upon HMIs and workstations based on location, vs. the "activity" approach when the world will operationally evolve and the concept " operational flexible teams " come into play.

The competitive advantage is based on how fast decisions are made and acted upon, how agile the operational processes and procedures can be evolved, and how effective companies leverage their fixed production assets, and their human operational assets.

Manufacturing Trends towards 2050

Well it is a new year and in many of us we look ahead, last year I looked at 2020 from an operational landscape, this year let us take a little bit further look out for looking at manufacturing. These are long term trends that will evolve and impact architectures, and I believe the whole landscape of operational systems. It relates to the discussion I brought up late last year on the trend from globalization to continentalision, due to speed of demand, and cost relative to energy etc.

Some interesting charts that show another set of trends I found in reading from ARC:

The top chart shows an interesting but fully expected trend towards more local, often small businesses, this aligns with continentalision, where time and agility to deliver is key, combined with another trend which is the move to customization of the end product. (note this is the opposite to what we see in the industrial software/ commercial software market where customization is giving way to “good enough” applications.) People will shift from brand to local product that aligns with the way they live , environment etc, this means more than language it means the culture of the consuming product. To achieve this combined with optimization even multi national companies will shift to local manufacturing sites for final productisation.  Example is in tobacco manufacturing where primary manufacturing is trending to centralize, and the packaging is local, enabling supply chain optimization, while agility to serve local markets.

But the bigger trend this move to “local/ smaller manufacturing facilities” suggests is the shift to “collaborative manufacturing” across an ecosystem of smaller more agile manufacturing facilities often run and owned locally. The opportunity for this comes through shift in technology to the “cloud” and “managed services” which enable a multi site manufacturing chain to managed in a series manufacturing facilities across the “product value chain” even if they are not the same company, but now a “collaborative manufacturing value chain” for that product. Managed services also provide the ability for these smaller companies to adopt mature operational/ MES applications as “managed services” providing them with operational control and alignment which has not been affordable before.

The chart below also supports the big trends by functions:

The key trends of shifting to renewable s, the impact of energy costs as the end of the “second industry revolution (oil based) “ declines, the “bottom of the pyramid” which refers to lowest 4 Billion income earners how we raise their standard of living. This is much more holistic view of the world than the 20^th century, except for the mass customization demand of my local product.

My feelings that this time to deliver, and satisfy the market the old “shelf space” will rule, with immediate satisfaction and freshness driving buying habits, combined with costs as transport and logistic costs and risk rise.

The final chart to reflect on shows the growing factors that effect manufacturing and operational decisions and therefore systems. 

This diagram does not look into the future but shows how in the last 20 years the major factors that influence manufacturing have expanded significantly, and they continue to grow. I would add the big one which is the shortage of skilled people, or operational empowerment in a dynamic workforce. Where now we have plants coming on line faster, or being acquired either into a global supply chain, or being added into a “collaborative manufacturing value chain” relative to a product. Combine this with the dynamic workforce that will be rotating roles, locations at less than 2 years in a role, while the ability to deliver more customized products drives the complexity of the production process, and value chain.

All good food for thought, as we look at significant operational transformation.

Review of the Blog “A Look at Industrial Operational Management Environment in 2020!!”

Throughout 2013, this blog and the message it brings has generated a lot of discussions and thought, debate when it comes to technology, architectural and cultural decisions being made around industrial solutions. The traditional approach we have taken for the last 20 years in design even evolutionary design of solutions must change, as there are too many vectors arriving at single point in time around:

·         Culture

·         Operational Agility to enable survival

·         Digital native workers

·         Safety and environmental impact

·         Combined with operational practices transformation

·         Technology like the “Cloud” and “Internet of things” extending the scope of the traditional industrial solutions to a wider value chain

I have been asked a number of times what were the big changes in 2013, basically they are listed above. Really when you look at these in the context of “the industrial landscape in 2020”, the transformation and decisions in architectures are key. As stated last week the “internet” will be part of the backbone of the industrial solutions; we will have “on premise “ and “off premise” components of this solution, and the shift to “activities” that transverse devices, roles, and locations are a key turn in the design approach.

So as you wind down on the year and wind up for Xmas I thought it was a good thing to reflect on what I started with this year, the projected landscape in 2020 and the only change is that, in some parts of the world such as China, South Africa many of the characteristics apply today.

Lets face it 2020 is only 8 years away, look at 8 years ago: Facebook had barely launched; iPhone and iPad did not exist, the A380 Airbus had not flown, and there was no YouTube, Twitter had not taken. Yet today Facebook, Youtube and social media are a natural part of our culture and lifestyle. I phone has now past MS Outlook as the world's largest email client, and mobile devices outsell all PC sales, which shows the significant shift in everyday life to always connected with the mobile device, not just for calls, but a 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 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 grip 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 jib / 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 the 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 leapfrogging 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 the 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 the 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.

All the best for Xmas and New Year, and as you reflect on the year ahead I hope some of the comments above are forming some of the foundation for the themes for 2014, it will be a very exciting year, as the reality in the transformation of the industrial landscape takes shape initially from vendor offerings (Example this time last year the historians were “on premise” now two leading vendors have solutions for Tier2 (enterprise Historians) in the cloud) Invensys been one.

Operational Transformation of Supervisory and Operational Landscape will Take Center Stage!!

As I sit waiting in another airline lounge ready to cross the Pacific again, my thoughts go to the key message that was delivered in Europe User Group Events 2 weeks ago, the event in Brisbane last Friday for the launch of Foxobro Evo(new Systems offering from Foxobro), and then in this weeks North American User Conference in Dallas.

The consistent message from customers to discuss, is “how do we deal with the changing operational culture”? I will be delivering 3 sessions on the operational transformation that is happening in the industrial world:

• Supervisory Transformation from HMIs to an Operational Landscape
• Information transformation from historians to Operation Information
• Operational Transformation from MES to Operational Management across sites

None of this is new, but the diagram below reflects the transformation at the supervisory level, where:

• Existing HMIs from 90s designed for the “island” process and the Gen X thinking are needing to reviewed, people are needing upgrade the technology, but with that transform.
• There is the transformation of the workforce to “digital native”, to shorter tenure ships in roles and locations, to multitasking as a natural work method.
• Operational practice transformation driven by competing in the “flat world” where decisions need to be now, inventory levels are minimum, product change is norm, new product introduction is rapid and across the world. Regulatory constraints impact and we from working on our own to working in teams, leveraging different roles, skills to make decisions and take actions faster and in more consistent way.
• Accountability and governance is growing
• Scope of management is growing, and the day in the life is changing, not behind one desk.

Why would you just upgrade to the latest version, when you probably have different HMIs from different vendors and version, done by different project teams all working in isolation limited interaction.

The move to modern operational experience system,  adopting the hierarchy, and object strategies for standards, embedding operational process, building in natural governance and intuition. Collaboration is natural including sharing, and the ability for the teams to virtual, so expertise is at the “finger tip”.

It is necessary to note that this is not just a vendor evolution, to me it is more and solution and cultural evolution and realization, where are you in this journey???

The reaction and discussion will be good, one of the areas we engaging in a series of sessions around operational world , roles, devices, “day in the life” in 2018-20.  The fact that the demand for these one on one sessions has been astounding is indicative of the change and awareness!!