Operations Innovation & Transformation – Fleet Management

We saw the expansion of control system, operation system extending beyond the fall walls of plant(fixed plant), in mining, oil and Gas, and Food and Beverage, and a month into this year we have this trend growing. The challenge being placed is how can we bring, apply the same approach found on fixed plant to fleet, or mobile plant. This blog takes a look at the network of fleet management across plants, next week we need to move to mobile plant.

  

The 4 quadrants described in the article “Operations Innovation & Transformation – the 4 Types” positions the lower left quadrant as a strategy for using a “fleet” of physical assets in a new way.

In this quadrant, a group of similar industrial operations (2 or more) adapt their performance objectives, business processes and accompanying hiring and information strategies to optimize the “fleet”.  The move is to unifying the industrial enterprise over multiple sites (in groups or as a whole), with a more holistic view in terms of operating strategy and performance management.

This innovation can be limited by the distribution flexibility among the locations, but several corporations have achieved success with this.  One example is keeping most of the locations operating at a constant or “base” portion of the combined market demand, and using the more agile locations to deliver the “swing” or variable portion of the demand.  Another example is allowing all locations to serve their local markets without contribution from any other of the “fleet”, but they all adapt their operations to meet a shared performance objective, such as yield or efficiency.

A key method used to sustain this strategy is the increased automation of work.  This is a significant step beyond scorecards, dashboards or rigid workflows.  The following 2 examples show how real-time performance measures (different from traditional KPI’s) and proactive procedural automation sustain this differentiation:

•  A “fleet” of similar industrial operations have some distribution flexibility so that they can deliver a portion of each other’s market demand.  Each operation delivery point and each operating shift for that segment are benchmarked with the others, and all delivery points and their shift performance carry a real-time performance score.  Some delivery points are more agile, and some operator shifts have fewer errors than others (quality, over/under delivering, reworks).

Coordinators (different industries have different names for this function) use workflows to negotiate upcoming changes in demand and the operating shift and the coordinators use the same visual demand, using a “tram line” display.  Information to the right of the center dashed line is forecast and planned.

•          A “fleet” of similar industrial operations within a single location or nearby locations has distribution flexibility, but they only share in real-time benchmarking (such as efficiency) and online performance guidance.  The following is an example when all physical assets are used, with equal output at this point in time:

• All of the physical assets share real-time benchmarking performance on efficiency and availability.  Now consider what can happen differently when supply or demand changes suddenly, such as an unplanned outage within the industrial operation or within a client’s operation:

In the left-hand diagram, losing capacity can cause all of the “fleet” to shut down, if fast and accurate guidance isn’t available and used to either import capacity (if feasible) or negotiate reductions in demand with one or more of the customers.

In the right-hand diagram, a client’s unplanned outage causes some or all of the “fleet” to operate in zones which might be unstable and trigger unplanned outages, if fast and accurate guidance isn’t available and used to either shut down one of the physical assets or export some of the product (at a discounted price).

Composite Frameworks What are They, the shift to Model Driven vs Custom: How do they Play?

As we look at MES and Operational solutions the role of the consistent operational execution and experience is key to achieving operational consistency. No matter the product at the back end the "operational experience" must be role based and transverse the products in the back end, and transform the experience from application configuration to "task/activity" based experience.

Traditionally companies have built User Interfaces to an API, with the calls needed to execution actions and transactions; these have worked well especially within a plant. But a key to operational systems being effective and agile is their ability to adapt on a regular basis, this requires a sustainable and evolving system. This is especially important in form/ transaction activities where information is provided and where actions/ data input, and procedures  that need to be carried out. But the challengers of operational procedures:

1. Operational Process cross-over functional domains and applications
2. Lack of governance
3. AgilityResponsive manufacturing business processes
4. Increase the performance of their people assets
5. Too much Custom Code, making it unmanageable and evolutionary

So like the Business System who started introduce BPM (Business Process Modeling) leading companies in the industrial space are looking and asking why they cannot apply the same techniques in the Industrial/ production sector.

There is no reason why not! Yes the time line is more real time, triggers are real-time, and we many roles with different time dimensions. But this also aligns with what the industrial world is very comfortable world with that of “stable in control loops” we do this in automation with feedback (information) and correction (actionable procedures), what we are looking at are “operational loops”.

Providing a graphical configuration environment for the capture and defining of operational process including the validation of data input, and guide actions, working inline with the user Interface/ forms etc. Providing a framework for building of reusable forms, and reusable procedures that can be managed as templates and standards to enforce consistent operational practices. Empowering the operational domain people to develop, evolve and manage their procedures.

Most of all empowering the different roles in the plant, that operational close loop moving to an “activity” centric system where information, and action is driven from a consistent operational model and practices.

Does the concept of Con-Current Licensing have a place in modern Operational Solutions?

Concurrency licensing has always been a request for clients, especially in reporting and view clients. Allowing the “pooling” of a set of licenses that are used on a first come basis. Often a very effective way of buying licenses at usage cost.

This makes a lot of sense in the transitional systems and architectures where people really only accessed the system when at work and within the 8 to 5 pm working day.

But a discussion last week with a customer who struggling with the shift to people being connected “all the time” thru their mobile devices and even connected when at home. Even if they not working, the new generation under 45 expect to be able to go online, and connect to the plant, system and access some “insight” to make or support a  decision. They do not expect to go online and find a message that there are no available licenses, wait for someone to free up a license.

The IT department is still asking for con-currency as a cost effective way of buying licenses, but the operational officer I talking with was struggling with the reality that they needed the “Named User” license allocated to a person no matter where he is and allowing the user to be connected to multiple devices at the same time.

Another challenge with the traditional licensing he is finding is that the users do not logout, or disconnect before leaving work, so their desktop at work is still connected, but now they are remote in the plant, or outside the plant and need to access thru their mobile. So the modern approach needs to apply of allowing multiple connections for a user at any one time.

What fascinated me was that this was reality, we have been going down this path for a while, expecting the change, and it was interesting that this customer wanted to talk about new models, to suite the new world.  

Food for thought as you design the new "operational System".