“The Future is Here, It is just Unevenly Distributed!”

This statement caught my eye when reading and listening to feedback from this year’s ARC Conference 2 weeks ago. It came from a presentation by John Carey, Vice President of the Aviation, Industrial, Marine, and Energy Business at BP Castrol. Who followed up with another statement that got my interest, and is so true in what I am seeing:

"What keeps me awake at night is that everything that has made my organization successful today will block our success tomorrow."

What a true statement! I just wonder how many people understand it. At a dinner conversation this week I was in a debate on the changing world, and it was clear to all of us that this is not just a technology changing time, but there are three factors all playing at one:

·    Technology is evolving in leaps and bounds, but the role of the internet has had some impact on the industrial world, but nothing compared to what it will have in the next 10 years, where it will change the whole nature of industrial architectures. This is not due to the internet, it is actually due to increased bandwidth of infrastructure and high availability that enables the internet to now leveraged as natural member of the industrial architecture, instead of traditionally for an offline access for information, and basic email, notification capability. The whole ability to share, reliably put systems in the “cloud” and depend on them will enable the designs to accommodate the changing behaviors in the modern business. Mobility plays into this, with the explosion in devices and access, we can now naturally work and act while in a roaming world.

·    Globalization of Business ( “Flat World”): You may say that is old, yes it has been a concept around for a few years, but it is still taking hold but is accelerating at a rapid rate. Chaning the behavior in searching for products, how we buy, how we live our lives, we no longer restrained buy county of regional boundaries, we travel at whim, we communicate, and buy across the world. We all behave in business in a global virtual world. There is not a day goes by when I would not be on at least one meeting where we minimum of 3 continents in the meeting virtually, this is why we don’t work a 9 to 5 day anymore. If businesses are to stay competitive the “holistic” global approach to value supply chain and making it flexible and agile is key, and this drives core behavioral changes.

·    Cultural Shift to Digital Native: enables culture and thinking, driving shorter times in roles, average of 6 careers in a working life, (not counting jobs). The ability multi task, search and filter collaborate with people in more active community vs the traditional day in the life of workers 10 to 15 years ago. This is not a technology change it is a fundamental behavioral/ approach and cultural change form the “baby boomer and 1^st half Gen x” to those who were born past 1970 who execute a day totally differently.

Not often in history do you get 3 significant currents of change happen at once with each of the three effecting and enabling the successful passage of change in the other, which will complete the significant transformation in the way operate in the business and industrial worlds by 2020 and 2025.

Mr. Carey discussed both current megatrends and specific technology trends that are already shaping the future of manufacturing. Megatrends include:

• Changing demographics and lifestyles

• Emerging networks of trust

• Hyper-personalization

• Digital everywhere

• Sustainability

According to Mr. Carey, today's technology trends in communications, transport, processes, energy, and materials are increasing both in terms of their globalization and complexity. “To succeed in this type of environment, manufacturers must innovate, but rather than actually being innovative in everything we do, we often talk about innovation as a separate department. Manufacturers also tend to manage their businesses from the inside out. The real issues are the discontinuities. How can you get your hands around them if you focus internally? Suppliers and customers must work together in strategic relationships. This requires deep trust."  "Today, the customer is king,” said Carey. "This disrupts everything: manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain." In the 20th Century, manufacturers simply designed, manufactured, and marketed their products using the “fire hose” approach. In the 21st Century, however, product design, manufacture, and distribution is increasingly being driven by the customer and his/her individual preferences and requirements.”

 

Stepping back this is not a shock we have seen this in the car manufacturing, but of interest is the rapid transition from managing the process to manufacture goods to “managing the product and that intern manages the processes”. By focusing on the product and value to the customer including quality, satisfaction and timely deliver of value to customer, the competitive position grows. So is born the requirement of “Flexible Operations”.  This is not a “nice to have” it will be a requirement to be competitive in this global market. This can be achieved through an aligned business from business strategy, through operations to process control. Aligned operational teams that span the value chain that enable realtime decisions.

A comment in the ARC conference in Orlando in Feb 2013 was:

"To meet 21st Century demands for mass customization, factories will have to become more intelligent and flexible. "In China, they are not just building more efficient factories, they're building flexible factories," Carey warned." For many leading executives, they feel they have reasonable control over their fixed capital assets not surprising as this mature, but what keeps them awake is the “operational team” the human asset alignment, combined with the agility required surviving in a global “flat “world.

In the mega trends, Carey talked about “sustainability” this is about sustaining the planet, with discussion at ARC conference supported the impact and importance of this moral trend. Yes, a moral trend that driven by customers and market beyond government regulation that consumer (which is the primary focus) has a growing desire to choose a service or product based upon capability and the one that is doing the most on the moral issue of sustainability. This means zero waste and zero emissions both in the manufacturing process and across the total lifecycle of finished products.

As we have discussed a lot in the last year and will no doubt continue, this is not just a technology evolution, it more of a behavioral, cultural evolution that will force a significant change in the way design operational and industrial systems.

Looking out at the industrial landscape, the future has arrived in some parts of the world relative to generation Y and rotating worker (e.g.| China, South Africa, India etc), for some industries many technologies are already here in techniques and materials etc, but not in their industry, yes people have a look outside their industry to see how to achieve the future. Example is the transport industry which leads the dynamic operational centers vs the mining industry that is just starting on that journey. Also in many cases the global business landscape of the future is here and is accelerating in adoption.  

Many companies are well down this evolutionary path changing the operational systems to align with the new business and cultural behavior, but others are approaching the challengers in the traditional automation thinking. It was encouraging to see these topics come to the surface at the ARC Conference in Orlando and be debated, it shows what I am seeing the growing recognition by executives of the extend of the wave change we going to have ride, over the next 10 years.