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.