Operational Manufacturing Interface (OMI) vs Human Man Interface(HMI) or SCADA

Over the last year, I have visited many sites, discussed with many peers the evolution of the Operational Experience in the Industrial Landscape. But over and over again I find myself in the much debate on the role and capability, as usual this is not anybody being incorrect it is a miss communication more often than not.

The traditional industrial user experience which has been owned by the Human Man Interface (HMI) or DCS workstation, where people control, monitor and interact with the process in a focused way. So in these discussions people use the HMI, but I find myself questioning what experience are they targeting or describing. More than often I pull up the diagram below to provide a reference for Industrial Operational Experience of today.

 An HMI for a process cell with a narrow focus is very different to the Operational Interface used in an Integrated Operational Center, and very quickly people see the different.

This does not mean the Time of the HMI is over, I fundamentally think it does it's job well, at the focused point at which a process cell and the human come together in a simple, clear and concise experience at a reasonable process to set up and sustain.

But as you move to the right of this diagram, increasing reason-ability, increased scope of control, increased value in decisions. No longer can you monitor the system, the system be an exception based bring to attention the critical items. The focus is on Operational Continuity, which goes beyond control to Optimization and performance, and effective alignment of the operational team. Understanding the operating boundaries set up by safety to humans and environment, and maintaining maximum operational/energy performance.

To achieve this, the user is looking at operational view/dashboard of the high level process with the ability to investigate situations onto surrounding operational view real estate for deeper focus, without losing the overall screen. This avoids missing situations, as this Center view is an exception based.   The ability to investigate and then share with others in the team, easily, and for dynamic live collaboration to exist between the site field staff and operational experts, production, maintenance etc no matter where they are.

The information, types of content used in these investigations are not standard process graphics of traditional HMI, they are to name a few:

Video, alarms, alarm event analysis, forms for data entry, and searching. Reports, documents, live collaboration tools, such as chat, video conference, and operational analysis tools to put events, data in the context of now, past and future for " what if" etc.

Key is the interaction between this content, with ability focus on the main screen and situation, then automatic relations across other content for rapid investigation and understanding is achieved for fast decisions.

This is NOT and HMI in the traditional sense and has caused us to term this new interactive, multi content environment in a new type of operational experience the " Operational Management Interface". This multi content environment will go across the operational control room to roaming expert maybe on a tablet, but different layout experience, and to the site.

The key is the interactive, collaboration experience across multiple content types to enable rapid decisions.

As you design for 2020 and operational workspace required over the next few years and for the next 20 years, ask yourself what is required by role, and activity.

A Look at Industrial Operational Management Environment in 2020!!

Lets face it 2020 is only 8 years away, look at 8 years ago: Facebook had barely launched, iphone and iPad did not exit, the A380 Airbus had not flown, and there was no You Tube, Twitter had not taken. Yet today Facebook, Youtube and social media are a natural part of our culture and lifestyle. Iphone has now past MS Outlook as the worlds largest email client, and mobile devices out sell all PC sales, which shows the significant shift in everyday life to always connected with the mobile device, not just for calls, but 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.

Reaction to my Blog on Windows 8!

Two weeks ago I discussed the fact that I believe the release of Windows 8 is a key milestone in the evolution of the Operational Experience.

There was a lot of reaction and debate as some people took this “as there will be a quick adoption of Windows 8 in the industrial environment”, which is not what was stated. The comment was relative to key milestone. Many people have gone to Windows 7, and it is a remarkably solid release, and will satisfy people for years.

Some people commented that Windows 8 will only be for the commercial market, e.g.| the “surface" tablet market, this will initially be true, but people also said with the IPAD people would not take it up. At a conference 2 weeks when Iooked around 90 % of people were on tablet devicse vs 2 year before everyone was taking notes doing email on laptop computers. We are all still doing the same “job" of taking notes and doing emails, but we have shifted to a new device due to the technology making my execution of job of taking notes and emails more efficient due to:

·         Size of the device it is easier to carry and handle at the conference

·         The speed at which it boots up, it is instant vs starting up.

·         I can see emails fast

·         I use mind manager for note taking this runs well as an app on the tablet

·         I can also draw diagrams easily that are captures as part of my notes

·         I can also take photos of diagrams, slides and whiteboard discussions and include these all as part of my notes.

People did not recognize this 2 years ago, but they now see the advantage and have evolved.

Looking at Windows 8 it provides significant new capability and paradigm change by going to “touch” that when combined with new devices, pcs coming from the hardware suppliers there will advantages people see in improving their “jobs" on the industrial floor. These advantages will only become fulling clear as people apply it.

But when combined with:

·         Gen Y’s expectation of “touch” experience

·         The natural requirement of collaboration over multiple interfaces in one system with personal or role base views to information

·         The whole methodology of jobs today, requiring evolution of the operational experience.      

Windows 8 is a potential key milestone, but that does not mean fast take up, that will probably come in Windows 9, as the story, situation, and advantages are well understood.

An example of the advantage of the “touch” world is the zoom by gesture it is natural to zoom, or expand out, and then swipe left and right for panning, these are far more natural than the taking a mouse a “clicking” on a location and dragging a zoom box over the area I want see in more detail. Watching my children struggle with mouse vs the touch screens of the IPAD they ask why we need to do this, they first go to the screen which is not “touch” enabled, but that is natural.

I will ask the same question I proposed 2 weeks ago:

“As you go to upgrade the industrial interfaces, would you not buy devices include these capabilities and come with Windows 8 vs the traditional PC, even if your HMI, Operational experience has not evolved yet?  

SIMPLICITY the path to adoption, and alignment!

Last week I talked about the two big concepts companies are going to have to grapple with in order to increase competitive efficiency (operational efficiency).

Last week I was dealing with some projects and again the example of technology solution/ change is simple compared to associated “cultural change” that has to be invoked inorder to achieve the objective and return. Key is adoption of the new approach, why not merge technology/ and human nature, to enable a key ingredients of change adoption by changing the situational experience. Human nature is one to to take the path of least resistance, so “simple”, “logical” and “intuitive” experiences can only promote adoption.

Why our User Interfaces must be come Model Driven?

I referred to “Model Driven “ navigation last week, and got some reaction that we are already there with ArchestrA Graphics. This made me step and re read what I in the last blog, and realise that I had assumed some understanding.

Yes today ArchestrA Graphics are built into the model in the objects etc, this is a significant step from the classic InTouch like window which the graphics are independent of the model, just linked, but many applications do not build in navigation to the model. My actually intention was not just these graphics in the model but take the whole operational experience to  level, that the model and views into this model for operational control etc, can be independent of the device and layout. Also, the model must be able to change freely and not a characteristic of what device or who will engage with it.