Dynamic Discussion on Transformation From MES to Operational Management System

In the last 2 months I have lead a number of public sessions and forums on this subject with my college Stan Devries two weeks ago we hosted 2 of these in Dallas, and again there was a lot of reactions and good discussion. A couple of months ago I blogged about the third generation of MES / MOMs, creating a lot of interest.

The diagram below shows the concept of transformation, it is really a move from traditional server, API based solutions with heavy customization restricting the required agility required today vs an SOA (service orientated) and model driven architecture. 

 

The discussions in the sessions centered on the amount of custom code surrounding the core MES functions which have been fairly stable for 10 years, evolving by industry. This custom code is a “ball chain” impact on the ability for the MES / operations system to evolve, due to integration with real time events, and the interaction with people. The one consistency is that the human interaction and operational interactions / process are continually evolving with new procedures changing regulations. Too much scripting, custom user interfaces, have been traditionally required.

The notion of “Model Driven Operations” where the design of an operational system is modeled based upon operational activities such as Material consumption, quality sampling, new product setup etc. The associated steps in the action are modeled within a workflow, and the required human interface forms are included in the associated steps, in the workflow. These are bundled interfacing with the MES functions, initiated manually or automatically from a plant event. This change from user interface to design based upon application, location to activity based design where the activities can be reused over multiple roles, locations, and sustained and evolved in the model. This shift was discussed a lot and too many this was a new step or thought process in the MES/ MOMs design approach.   

Also, the discussion of the concepts around the Gartner “Manufacturing 2.0” architecture combined with the emergence of “cloud” and the opportunities this new hybrid architecture proposes for consistency in management of operational processes, and measures while sustaining the local execution. The diagram below provides a view of one potential architecture here. There are several options we are trying at the moment, and it appears that Operational Management is ideal for a hybrid Architecture.

The sessions we held outlined the above topics and discussion was constructive and in agreement, key is that “are solution builders really taking into account all these points?” There is so much opportunity for small through to multi nationals.

Next week I want outline an interesting discussion on the shift to “distributed” world centered on the “Third Industrial revolution debate, I had on the flight last week across the pacific, as the concepts we seeing so much in the industrial world.

 

It is a matter of "when" not “if" for the cloud in Industry!

At the Invensys North American user conference, last week the discussion and chatter around cloud was in full swing. Many people on a discovery phase, realising that it was not "if” it was more " when"!

Even in the large companies while the issue of security and IP protection was significant and a hot topic for discussion, there was a general feeling this will be resolved and proven in the next couple of years, opening up the opportunity for companies to considerate possibilities.

It was clear that many companies are a different maturity, thought pattern relative to cloud.

In many of my Operational Transformation sessions, the discussion and realization that the business operational requirements of the next decade are most effectively satisfied by the cloud architecture no matter if it is "private" or public. Key was the discussion around even design current solution architectures in a way that will easily expand to the cloud when the security concerns are satisfied.

 Interestingly some of the leading companies realized the significant initial opportunity is the delivery of operational/ industrial services such as historian, MES, operational work procedures with domain solutions built on top to small and remote sites. These sites have limited engineering, and it local support and this has been the barrier for adoption of many of the traditional tools applied in the larger plants. In a simple way the ability to have multiple end sites historized their information (it maybe on a few tags or items) have calculations performed on them and but without having to install, setup or maintain a historian or information set of clients. Small numbers of tags and limited knowledge has restricted use of such tools. This can all change now, with the cloud infrastructure that can expand, and access sites in a secure way even if it a one “diode” out of the plants, the information can now be stored, structured and then a set of safe tools provided for access. So in locations like India, China, south East Asia and small sites in USA the opportunity for using these tools limited to larger sites with support capability is key.

My thoughts swing back to my trip earlier in the year to New Zealand where an engineer from Water waste water industry just stated ”why would you put another server on  remote sites, the hassle of sustaining them in harsh environments, patch managing, and just keeping fan going when there is not local service is too much”. Last week this underlying message kept ringing through from all sized companies, as a real opportunity for reduction in sustaining costs, and increasing the reliability and increased value to these remote small sites.

What I wanted to point out throughout this year the momentum “wave” and discussion around the possibilities with using cloud has increased dramatically. As companies like Invensys focus on understanding the customer’s barriers to adoption and work on the IP and Security concerns to enable a “trusted system”, the adoption will increase. All Enterprise Architects in Industrial space need consider, especially the smaller remote sites that as a central engineering and IT organization there is cost and trouble is servicing effectively.  

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!! 

Is the end of heavily customised Industrial Operational Systems here?

“What are you saying came?” A comment back from an engineering house, as I started talking about the end users looking for speed to production of projects and are prepared to compromise customization for this!

Not surprising as their business is built around satisfying end users desires for heavily customized automation and operational solutions, even built on standard industrial products, companies have pushed for the customization of these products to suit the way they intend or operate.

I would challenge that these days of heavily customization are coming to an end, driven by the need to get systems and plants up as fast as possible at the compromise for totally custom solutions.

The concept of “good enough" driven from companies such as Apple where their applications from the store provide “specific” task capability (book taxi, airport flight status, email  etc.) with limited customization and configuration options, yet we constantly adopt them due to risk, and speed of and convenience of now.

There are a number of trends that point to this move to adopt proven completed functionality vs customize:

·         Also in manufacturing people are looking for " plug in and play" process modules units, "skids" that have machinery and control configured and proven and are already tested and commission, so now we just have to plug them together. Example in packaging lines, but even refinery ports where we have had modular solutions with equipment, instrumentation, piping and control for years and just bolted and plugged them together.

·         Multi site companies are driving programs around standards, and then enforcing these to be rolled out and managed across sites and in many case different system integrators.

• So now as look at the adoption of “Managed Services” into the industrial market, we see the need for speed to full production as key, causing people to avoid capital projects/ RFPs and look to gain an advantage by using what is available already as a “managed service”. This has not hit larger companies but certainly is becoming the norm at Tier 3 (small companies) and at tier 2 companies, who want take advantage of the opportunity now. The concept of a set of managed services for:
• Energy monitoring and analysis across all my pumping stations in a water plant or plants
• Production/ process information solution that draws up real time data from many plants and assets and stores it in a historian like storage, with out of the box notifications, rules, and analysis clients that are self service to a wider community. Again this could be across facilities monitoring, unconventional gas wells, pump stations along a pipeline etc.
• Manufacturing operations (MES) for a particular industry that provides manual good/ materials receivables, inventory and WIP management across the manufacturing floor, production order management to CNC machines etc. Again the screens, the forms, the reports are built for that industry, the proven system, the companies provide the master data (customers, products etc), and the rest is available fast as managed services. So a typical MES/ Operations project for a small plant with RFP and definition would go from 6 month to 2 weeks and extremely low risk.

At VM Ware conference two weeks ago again we see the cloud services, and significant discussion that adoption of cloud based services is at the expense of customization. The idea of plugging in a solution and plant and leveraging the design as is will become the norm I believe in the next 3 to 5 years, and certainly provide the edge of agility to those adopt this approach.

Does this mean I think the day of the system integrator is over, NO, they have the unique domain knowledge to build these ‘managed services” and provide the local services to rapidly deploy standards and “managed services”. Yes the way of working in the engineering house will change but I see this as significant opportunity not the other way round!