Focusing on Operational Activities and new Roles provides a Path to the Future Operational Workspace.

As we enter the new year, the challenge of how and where we start designing the new operational solutions for 2020 and beyond will come up.
I have expanded on a blog I did in November with a white paper, on the facets especially around the Operational Workspace.
I hope this provides some food for thought as we enter the new year.

Companies have invested and executed on the traditional alignment in a plant across process systems, and business systems (such as SAP), leveraging such guidelines such as ISA-95. With the drive towards more and more agility and rapid deployment of products to markets, the alignment of multiple plants, and their operational/automation systems with the business strategy/ applications is a key area. The other key area of critical concern is the operational workplace. With rapid agility, comes the requirement for more alignment, and more complexity, combined with key / rapid decisions to be made in real-time, and as a result the new operational team collaboration, and operational workspace will be critical. Combine this with the facts that over 10,000 experienced baby boomers are retiring each week, (this rate is expected to continue for seventeen years), and that by 2020, 42%+ of the workforce is expected to made up of Gen Y.

So where do you start when planning to design an industrial operational system today?

Some people throw technologies around like Cloud, wireless, and mobile, and begin looking for how to apply them, instead of stepping back and looking at “how they will be Operating, based upon the business, market and both capital and human assets”. This requires developing a plan and landscape to satisfy this future operational state, and then apply the best technologies available to achieve the result in the most timely, cost effective and operationally effective manner.

The future “operational state” of the business needs to take into account:

• The production and delivery requirements of products and services, and how to satisfy the consumer demand, this will probably lead to an “enterprise Industrial/ Manufacturing Landscape” with a holistic view and operational execution across multiple plants strategically located for satisfying delivery.
• The “operational workspace” of the future and how the workforce, including all roles at corporate, in the plants, delivery and supply will execute their required activities in the most effective manner.
• The overall supply chain of raw materials, to delivery, the cost, the environmental impact, and how to minimize energy costs.

It is important to note that, in most cases the automation layer is mature and well established and that their business side is also mature on the second generation business system.

So the question of where do I start designing a system for 2020 a beyond, leads to all three of the above aspects of requirements, but of the three aspects of consideration above, the “operational state” is the one that least understood and probably the biggest impact. The opportunity of significant improvement and gain is in the “Operational Workspace” at the operational layer across multiple facilities. Based around the “activities” a role executes decisions in real-time with consistent actions across a range of workers in that role in different plants.

In defining the future “Operational Workspace” of an industrial landscape there are two key activities that need to defined:

• Define the “Operational Activities”: across the value supply chain, looking at each step of manufacturing and delivery. As these activities are captured look to determine a common set of “activities” that can be applied across the sites. It is important to have a defined set of work/ operational processes from which people execute, and then look to embed these processes in a sustainable manner so that they can evolve over time. The diagrams below show the importance of a framework for operational process and how these contribute to the site operational activities, based on what Toyota has applied.

Embedding these operational procedures is important so that consistency across sites, teams, and the dynamic workforce is achieved and sustained. The diagram below from ARC shows the impact of companies building standards and the difference in the long term if they are not embedded to become part of “Operational Workspace”.

• Define the roles in the new operational workspace: how they will work. These roles could be on site or off site, through the concept of the “flexible operational team”. Define the role, the day in the life of that role taking into account location, what “activities” that role is responsible for, and who and what he/she will interact with through the day. Yes, switch into a “Facebook” thinking of friends, but friends maybe people, (other experts) Assets, Processes, even products. Once this map of “activities” and responsibilities during the day is defined, this drives what information, systems and people this role must interact with in a day. By understanding how a role will work in his/her day e.g. if he/she will be located at a plant or roaming, the way that the role will engage with the operational workspace will become clear as well as the role of such technologies of mobile, cellular networks vs. wireless infrastructure, etc. For a particular activity, the role may be notified using one device, but actually executing the role may need to go to a different device based on the requirement for the activity’s execution. When looking at the role, also understand the expected experience in executing the activity, or the site awareness, potential age (e.g. Gen Y- are they experts providing support), etc. as this effects the design of the most effective operational environment.

This role map is key as now you have a starting point, as to driving consistency in a dynamically changing workforce. These role maps are then combined, composed of “operational activities” associated with the role, where the activity has the required notification, information, actions, community of expertise etc. and architectural landscape so these “operational activities” can complement existing systems.

The architectural landscape should define the layers on top of existing systems, in a neutral way, where these operational activities (model driven approach) will reside, these could be local or remote hosting but will require clear governance and require models to defined in an environment that enables constant evolution of the practices but process experts locally and centrally as a “crowd development”, with governance control.

Initially focusing on a role or set of key roles allows the company to gain an approach on how the operational plant will run in 2020 and the key decisions / activities that required, and start applying these now in an architecture that lives with the current systems, but starts to drive consistency and faster decisions across that same role over multiple plants.

Notice that the discussion is independent of technologies; my assumption on mobile and Cloud that the architecture is set up so that these activities will be able to execute independently of the device, so that the adoption of what devices are used on a plant are relative to the plant and the support that they get. The key is the devices, no matter if desktop or mobile or web, should be suited to efficiency of the role execution.

This approach defines the “Operational Workspace” with roles and activities in a defined framework applied across the industrial landscape of the required value chain for delivering products in a timely manner to desired markets. Optimizing these processes and procedures lowers the cost of materials, wastage, and energy, and maximize the utilization of available capacity.

Happy New Year, A year of Promise for Operational Transformation

As I sit and look out over the surf in south Australia, with the end of year here, we have time to reflect.
Firstly happy new year to all of you.
2014 has a real opportunity to be a transformation year in the Operational Management space, with many of the seedlings of trends and direction becoming increasingly adopted as we accelerate into new requirement of agility.
In this brief blog the areas for watching:

• The increased use of the "internet" as a natural part of the operational / automation architecture
• The increased adoption of the cloud combined with the expect rapid expansion "managed industrial services" (offerings) available from vendors and specialist suppliers
• The increased transition from central to distributed, in all aspects of architecture and operational approach to plants.
• The increased role of energy and environment as one of the big factors in operational/ automation design.
• The change in operational Experience to accommodate the transition of workforce to Gen Y and to a more operational team
• The shift to the "internet of things" where smart strategies will increase the distributed landscape of operations, and control.

So many of these strategies are well under way, but 2014 there is the potential for surge in adoption to increase  as confidence and acceptance of the approaches takes place.

Enjoy the start of 2014.

Confusion Over Standards: Limits or Basis for Innovation?

One of the nice things of this time of year the meeting workload drops, providing the opportunity to do some much needed catch up of reading. An article that sparked some interesting thoughts and is related to a lot of the principles of work and activities. It is worth a read on Toyota’s approach to management of standards around the fundamentals of operational procedures.

http://m.industryweek.com/blog/confusion-over-standards-limits-or-basis-innovation

As discussed at length this year there are a couple of key approaches that will effect industrial operational design:

·         That design needs to move away from interfaces to actually design around activities/ Work; these can be executed through any interface hosted on any device.

·         The other trend is to move to manage / planned work, a knowledge worker moves from a “fire fighting” mode to a 70+ % planned work in a day, which increases safety, and consistent process execution through operational process stands combined with significant cost reductions due reductions in the planned time.

These two trends or approaches will grow in adoption in 2014/ 15 as it is the only practical way to deal with the changing dynamic nature of the workplace and rotating workforce.

The structure outlined below by Jim Laker used at Toyota is a good basis for the how to lay out standards in procedures vs the actual operation instruction. But another key cornerstone of this is knowledge management, with 10000 baby boomers retiring a week in the US, and this rate is expected to sustain for the next 17 years, the requirement for skill vs the talent pool will be offset. So the operational systems must incorporate shared knowledge, crowd sourced and managed to maintain the value. Many of the operational procedures and best practices must be captured over the next 5 years, companies must put a maintainable knowledge management  system, and culture in place, and as you can see in this diagram that standard procedures, operational safety and environment procedures, and practices form the basis for the transition to planned work, and activity based systems.

When you think of standards you think of “handcuffs” on design and therefore innovation, but this is not a logical thought process. How do you enable operational innovation which is based on operational best practices, provides the foundational platform on consistent execution to enable innovation and movement forward. The need to capture operational innovation by taking the best operators and knowledge workers based on years of practices, capture their operational practices within a system so that new less experienced users to adopt the proven practice. Is this a one off NO, this is the continuous process of improvement which will provide the edge for companies to agile.

As you sit down for the Christmas pudding and we look forward to 2014, there is much opportunity and change ahead of us, and these articles provide solid food for thought.

Have a great festive season, and see you in the new year.  

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.

Applying New Technologies “Cloud/ Internet of Things” to Achieve addition “Jobs to be Done” vs Initially Applying to Existing Systems

Last week I was in Perth speaking with many people, and again it struck me that people were not looking a new opportunities for such technologies as the “cloud, or Internet of things” they were still in the traditional mindset.

As I have mentioned before I am a big believer in “The Outcome Driven Innovation” approach to looking at markets, opportunities. Providing a clear view into trends and focus on what is important.

So why are not people looking at the opportunities beyond the traditional industrial space of automation systems, to extend the scope and alignment of complete value chain. Example was with Invensys’s recent release of a “cloud based historian” the initial people you talk to are struggling on the benefit vs just a “tier 2 / Enterprise historian”. This is not surprising when “the conversation continued”, they were applying the technology to solve an existing “Job” problem which was well satisfied vs reviewing opportunities to add value that just are not served today.

But when I asked the question about their 1000’s of small auxiliary plants with low manning (if any),  for water, substations etc, and the opportunity to have 10 to 100 points coming up into a “managed  historian like service” so no need to: host, setup, manage a historian, and no need buy an over sized historian as now the small points from one plant can be included in a historian capability used by others (multi tenant). On the realization that we could actually extend the reach of the existing system, and therefore the opportunity optimize and tune these less visible plants, providing transparency and potentially interaction, people “sparked” up, and now the “Cloud” had some real additional value.

The same discussion happened over dinner with the “Internet of things” where again people were thinking of applying within the existing plants, vs extending the scope of control, visibility to a less well served segment of the value chain. Really the initial opportunity is to extend the unified system, and to remote devices and empower the roaming staff. Example is the “cold supply chain” in the distribution of food, where leaving the plant you have a series of refrigerated trucks and distribution centers. In order to achieve positive release of product and end to end full history the products. The “internet of things” provides the opportunity of each of the devices, plants (trucks) can be connected the temperatures of the products recorded as well as what products are in the truck. In a geographically distributed solutions, the concepts of isolated, remote assets, roaming value assets such as wells, trucks, and roaming people the logical is to have them all connected, the ability todo analysis and notification, react faster etc. Extending the traditional landscape/ scope of the automation system, with the technology step very minor if you have a 3G/ 4G approach and a tiered /Hybrid architecture. The hybrid architecture provides data integrity, with store forward etc,  addressing possible disconnects, but with the bandwidth management now available on data systems is key. This is only one example the if we look at other roaming equipment such as mine trucks and trains, wells and roaming drill rigs etc. Why now is because the technology, infrastructure and requirement exist, combining these provides a new level operational value. The move to supporting EDGE/ GPRS interfaces will become a natural part of industrial solutions, with self discovery capability.

Another discussion last week that stands out in my mind was around a customer who considered the cloud as unsafe from a security point of view. Then someone decided to really test this unsafe assumption and had an internal review of their security exposure vs the cloud solution, and it became very clear that their own “on premise” architecture was significantly more exposed than the cloud solution. This study was a good example of the ignorance of the new architectures; this customer is now shifting their architectural landscape to a hybrid architecture including “on and off” premise components.

It is clear that “Internet” will be part of the backbone of industrial automation and operations solutions. Especially as the market drives for more accountability End to End and decisions in the NOW, no matter where the key decision person is independent of device.