“It’s not raining; it’s pouring”, the rate of change social, workforce, market combined with built up industrial effects, will make 2013/14 exciting!!!!

As we all come to end of 2012, we have time to reflect and look towards 2013, (even bigger things if you are on the Mayan calendar who start their new complete calendar). I find the time over the holidays a time to step back and think, absorb, read, reflect and strategise without the daily routine. As I flew back home, low over the northern coast of New South Wales, Australia I read a number of articles and one from Deloittes on “Tracking the Trends 2012”  which lead with “It’s not raining; it’s pouring” was straight to point and not just for mining, but all industries. Combine this with an improved positive outlook from China and fewer significant potential changes in government next year, 2013 provides the opportunity to build momentum with companies starting the journey to take on solid challengers of unified solutions to achieve “Operational Excellence”. The challenge will be the constraint of bridging the gap between “time and urgency of getting to full production, vs the green light to proceed forward, vs the challenge of the existing install base of “islands of industrial systems”’.

So in the final blog of the year I would like review some of the points raised in this paper, and just expand and enabling further reflection.

Dynamic Simulation needs to become a Natural Feature of the Industrial Operational Landscape

To empower operational teams, workforce, each role must understand the context of the future, as well as current state and history. In the traditional industrial solutions, the worker is provided with tools for understanding history and NOW. This is the same as driving a car by only looking at the dashboard of the car, and rear vision mirror. Can you drive the car without looking out 100 meters or longer into the future the answer is NO, you would miss judging the next corner?

So why do we think we can run plants in this same manner?

Big Data Requires a Big, New Architecture

“The potential of “big data,” the massive explosion of sources of information from sensors, smart devices, and all other devices connected to the Internet, is probably under-appreciated in terms of its eventual business impact. However, to take maximum advantage of big data, IT is going to have to press the re-start button on its architecture for acquiring and understanding information. IT will need to construct a new way of capturing, organizing and analyzing data, because big data stands no chance of being useful if people attempt to process it using the traditional mechanisms of business intelligence, such as a data warehouses and traditional data-analysis techniques.” Dan Woods; Forbes

So does this apply to Industrial Area, I was heading through Terminal 5 in Heathrow this week, and articles banners around Big Data were all around me, and yes it is the latest “train” for people to board, but is it real in the Industrial Space? As I boarded a train, sat doing a mind thinking moment looking at the industrial operations/ automation landscape I realized why there is confusion is that in the industrial space,  we talk about Enterprise Historians, and one person said to me that is big data! I do not think so, it is just one aspect of the growing industrial information dilemma facing all us over the next 5 years.

When I look at the predictions of Big Data by Industry from Gartner:

It is the End of the Year, what is on people minds this year vs. Last year?

Sitting a coffee table in Convent Garden in London, the chilling winter wind blowing through me, but the dazzling lights of Christmas and the holiday season dance about me. I have the opportunity to absorb the discussions of the last week discussing with teams from around the world what is driving operational thought leaders in mining, transport, and infra-structure. Now I look up at dazzling lights my mind shifts to the thought of;”is there a difference in operational priorities this year vs. last year and the answer is YES!!!”