Demographic shifts transform the global workforce, why we need to rethink Operational Systems

This is an interesting article supporting another challenge in the workforce and why many of trends we have talked about are key to consider now, not in 5 years.

Summary: Never before has demographic change happened so quickly. Global employers face the challenge that, despite a growing global population, they will soon have to recruit from a shrinking workforce due to an aging population.

Despite a growing global population, the availability of skilled workers is actually shrinking, and no longer just in advanced, aging countries such as Japan and Italy. Now, some emerging markets, such as China and Russia, are also feeling a demographic pinch.
The data suggests that this is only the beginning. A “demographic divide” will soon arise between countries with younger skilled workers and those that face an aging, shrinking workforce. The war for talent will become increasingly acute in certain sectors, especially areas requiring high skill levels and more education.
 http://www.ey.com/GL/en/Issues/Business-environment/Six-global-trends-shaping-the-business-world---Demographic-shifts-transform-the-global-workforce

Consider once we in this new workforce then we in a dynamic workforce. 

Factory of the Future 2014 centers on Workers ! Tacit knowledge is key not just explicit knowledge!

Sorry for missing last week, just in too many planes. But time to read and reflect on points, and I was discussing an opportunity in Korea with a colleague. Some in the customers think tank asked him to present at a high level the landscape of manufacturing in the future 2020 +. Not surprising to me he centered the new world of manufacturing and industry around the “worker and human decision making/ action”, going out to the processes and then production assets.

I was then reading some background material around Horizon 2020 call for tenders relative to “Factory of the Future” driven by European Commission.

Under Horizon 2020, the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation, for 2014-2020, the new contractual Public-Private Partnership (PPP) on Factories of the Future (FoF) will build on the successes of the FP7 Factories of the Future PPP.
The FoF multi-annual roadmap for the years 2014-2020 sets a vision and outlines routes towards high added value manufacturing technologies for the factories of the future, which will be clean, highly performing, environmental friendly and socially sustainable. The priorities have been agreed within the wide community of stakeholders across Europe, after extensive public consultation.

The interesting focus of this year of the program was around the worker, both in increasing the effectiveness of the different workers but also attractiveness of industry to entice the new generation of workers to want to engage in this industry. This has been a challenge for the last 15 to 20 years where the industrial sector has been seen as slow, and of limited innovation. But “the times are a changing” and innovation is happening fast, and with the acceleration of the industry down the “internet of things” path (as the biggest potential value growth of this approach is in industry with it’s millions of devices) so will come innovation.  

This year’s Factories of the Future work program includes a call for proposals that address increasing the attractiveness for workers. The scope of proposals could have included:

• Methods and tools for design or adaptation of facilities and technologies to support productivity, well being, and worker autonomy in production

• New methods and technologies supporting knowledge capture and team interaction to enhance work satisfaction, safety, and ergonomics

• Integration of innovative production technologies supporting increased productivity and flexibility, and

• Training and educational aspects to raise job attractiveness for young people and the elderly

The call text specifically mentioned scheduling of work and design of work places, adaptive technology such as augmented reality, addressing tasks holistically, and production systems ensuring efficient transfer of knowledge and information. New systems must support the “tacit” knowledge of the worker in the process of controlling advanced machinery and production lines.

Tacit knowledge is not easily shared. Although it is that which is used by all people, it is not necessarily able to be easily articulated. It consists of beliefs, ideals, values, schemata and mental models which are deeply ingrained in us and which we often take for granted. While difficult to articulate, this cognitive dimension of tacit knowledge shapes the way we perceive the world.

In the field of knowledge management, the concept of tacit knowledge refers to a knowledge possessed only by an individual and difficult to communicate to others via words and symbols. Therefore, an individual can acquire tacit knowledge without language. Apprentices, for example, work with their mentors and learn craftsmanship not through language but by observation, imitation, and practice.

The key to acquiring tacit knowledge is experience. Without some form of shared experience, it is extremely difficult for people to share each other's thinking processes.

Tacit knowledge has been described as “know-how” – as opposed to “know-what” (facts), “know-why” (science), or “know-who” (networking). It involves learning and skill but not in a way that can be written down. On this account knowing-how or embodied knowledge is characteristic of the expert, who acts, makes judgments, and so forth without explicitly reflecting on the principles or rules involved. The expert works without having a theory of his or her work; he or she just performs skillfully without deliberation or focused attention.

Tacit knowledge is typically difficult to capture and transfer from one worker to another, so if systems could be designed to do so, it could minimize loss of critical tacit knowledge and thus help relieve the skill crunch related to the aging workforce. At a macro level, this could increase the industry’s capacity to innovate and capture knowledge. In the concept of Operational Manufacturing Interfaces the ability to capture, embed evolve operational procedures, process based upon experience is key. With this there is a basis for companies to build and evolve through consistent and optimized operational actions aligned to decisions in the NOW, providing the foundation for "Operational Innovation". This is not natural in the traditional HMI, Industrial Workstation and in the way design our industrial systems for the last 20 years, it is time change!

It would indeed be very valuable to adapt the work place, work scheduling, interactions with production technology and documentation to the skill level and mental and physical state of the worker. It would also be a major advance to be able to adapt the decision support content and mode of communication to both the state of the production line or factory and to the state of the worker.

It is pleasing to see the continued evolution and alignment around the thinking of workers, how "operational Innovation" can become a natural part of the systems.

"Smart, intelligent, brilliant devices" what is key is "self aware" devices

As I listen to “Youtubes," lectures on the Internet of Things, and in industry forums, I hear the terms of " smart, intelligent, and now brilliant" devices, as we move to smart cities, smart farms, smart airports, and smart industrial sites. I asked myself what is the core value and difference?

There is a significant leap and a significant switch from monitoring devices from a high application or humans, to " self aware" devices that monitor their own health and capability. Next you ask the difference between "smart" to " brilliant" devices and interestingly there is even amongst the marketing hype! The level of capabilities associated to the device that takes them from simple "self awareness" of asset health, to predictive and "machine learning" capability to move from the " as is" alarm to "to be " state."

However, it is all increased levels of embedded "self awareness" capability as close to the device or in the device to monitor, and understand it is effective condition to the "golden" operating condition, with the intent to sustain "operational continuity." The key is device level " awareness" and the connection of these devices to the Internet apart of a  holistic system( site, enterprise), raising exception conditions automatically, and acted on in a consistent, and “best practice procedure." With many of the same types of devices can now be aware of each other, learn from each other and grow in "self awareness" capability. Increasing the ability to shift to the "to be " state where exception conditions seen early,  corrective action can be taken fast and early to maintain " operational continuity."

As we go forward the " future" will also be incorporated into the device, eg high fidelity simulation models will be available for common devices, and will learn relative to the particular device setup and situation. Enabling not just the current condition but the future condition window to be seen, and " what if" to be played out but inexperienced operational staff to make well informed and correct decisions. This simulation model will either run locally or be called upon by the device to a remote simulation environment with discrete device models.

All of this device awareness is what I see as a paradigm shift the "Internet of things" brings and the opportunity to the industrial operational space for the next jump in productivity.

I have heard many times, and agree with the Internet of things, "self aware"devices that leverage their "brothers and sister devices" and other intelligence not applications, brings the next step change in output growth and GDP output. Called the "third industrial revolution" where and industrial revolution is when a significant step change in GDP productivity output is achieved, the first two been:

1/ the first industrial revolution with the steam engine, and then self pro population capability for production and transport.

2/ the Internet in 1992 to 2000, and beyond where human communication, collaboration and the " flat world was introduced" switching us from regional to global effectiveness.

3/ the Internet of things" self aware devices, and collaboration between devices, applications and people to address the fast moving world we live in and the requirement of “Now” decisions and satisfaction.

Too often all of this is associated with larger companies and utilities, but last week I visited a small food plant in rural Australia, to discuss their next step in operational change, and competitiveness. Two thought leaders where present, and it was great to have a very active and productive discussion around not problems, but opportunities. Leading to a powerful discussion on discovery investigations around these opportunities, and the key opportunities were again:

1/ People cost, therefore effectiveness

2/People efficiency in a dynamic and changing workforce

3/Brand integrity, and quality

4/Variable costs in materials but now energy

The discussion took us to the operational work space of the future the need for not data, but effective information that enables exception based operational management, supervisory control of the plant, and process.  Shift from process management to product production management, spanning all the processes and production units required to produce a product. A shift to activities that are required in order make the product and enable operational continuity.

The concept of "self aware plant” made up " self aware devices” and " self aware process" with embedded operational procedures was a reality, and not just for big companies, but even more critical for small to medium companies/sites that have fewer resources.

Maybe the new world is not that far away!

Operational Work, Accountability, and the evolution to Activity Design is Fundamental

As I toured customers in North America, Australia and Middle East over the last month, the discussions around operational / supervisory/ automation design have come up. Over and over again the core theme becomes evident that of "activities/tasks" become a core to design vs. the stations and interfaces.

One customer broke their plant up into logical operational/process cells, and then defined not the User Interfaces, and interfaces but the "actions, decisions " that need to be made to operational and manage these cells. The commentary was different from the old days where they would have defined the user interface (HMI, DCS workstation) now they were think "tasks". They believed that they would have "universal" stations on plant floors that could access all "tasks" so roaming people could just go to the closest station to take action, after being notified on their mobile device.

They had made a decision that they did not want control actions to take place from a mobile device, but all information relative to the situation and "task/ activity" can be seen on a mobile device, this is a fair decision.

The clear thinking in the design is that

1.  No longer is control only local, they have a central control, and roaming workers which all need to see situation and act on " tasks/ activities"
2. That their operational differentiation in the market is down to their operational processes/ procedures not technology or User Interface.
3. That these Operational procedures that make up these " tasks/activities" will evolve, and you are not certain who person, role, device, or location this " task/ activity" will be acted upon.

It was good to see the logical, free thinking, and we were able then to go into the design of what makes up an "activity/task." With the key elements being

1. trigger condition
2. notification, including escalation to relevant team through the activity lifetime
3. decision support information
4. relevant action operational procedure to resolve which could go across multiple people based upon the Resolution Path.

The diagram below shows the seven detail core elements, key is dealing with "emergent work" vs "planned work".

The other point that came up in the discussions was "accountability" so that actions and who owns the decision and action is clear eliminating confusion. " Governance" of the procedure so that it can evolve and managed over time so that it can be tuned, evolved in value over time.

It was good to see a shift in design thinking, but it was clear these are thought leaders, most people in the forums were still traditional approach, yet they talked about the changing workforce. I wonder how you can design a system based upon HMIs and workstations based on location, vs. the "activity" approach when the world will operationally evolve and the concept " operational flexible teams " come into play.

The competitive advantage is based on how fast decisions are made and acted upon, how agile the operational processes and procedures can be evolved, and how effective companies leverage their fixed production assets, and their human operational assets.

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.

Information Driven Operational/Process Excellence Set Drive Next Wave in Mining but with a Twist

As I toured a number of the leading mining companies this week, the conversation showed a significant shift from last year from "greenfield" to “brownfield" discussions. Shifting from new plant implementation and speed to full production to how they draw the most efficiency from existing assets. The interesting twist was that the discussion of what was an existing asset:

1/ Fixed assets such as equipment

2/ plant ore assets

3/ mobile assets like trucks, digging equipment

4/ human assets, operators, maintenance and experts

So the strategy was how to tap existing information more than often locked within SCADA trend systems, and other data stores, it was key to extract this data and align these records into effective information. The driving forces are :

1/ minimal impact on the existing systems

2/ speed of delivery of the value

3/ expertise to understand and interpret the value

4/ predictive awareness, pattern recognition

The diagram below again resounded in the discussions.

The key for Industrial Analytic s is the trusted data, and just a historian will not achieve this, the model and validation must be done as close to the source.

The information needs delivery in many cases outside the automation landscape, often in the corporate networks. The key is to use the not APIs but make the connection through an SOA architecture. The service sits on the data source, with configuration, and data delivery built in, but key is low impact and effort.

This is not new, as the enterprise historian has been around for years, but the real difference is the need not just gather data, but to capture the data in a structure,  context, and validation of data that makes sure all stored data through resulting information is in trusted.

You are probably sitting there and saying nothing new! Fair, but the key was how are they going get this structured trusted data, that the concept was to do this as close to the source as possible, and then send through. This means the underlying systems do not change, minimize risk, maximize Lifecycle managed to enable evolution which will happen. Why is this not an IOT service, local and pushing vs polling, “self configuring” ?

Remembering the performance team of experts can be anywhere, and will probably virtual, where sharing, analysis and Modeling is done in offline mode looking for patterns.

As the discussions evolved the architecture evolved, and again the "cloud" came into play, why because the data size will grow, the users are everywhere, and the infrastructure of delivering is now there.

Why not?

The collaborative information, industrial analytics, is going to be foundational for the future of Gen Y teams of analysts experts from different locations and outside the companies.

Standby, as we see some of the optimization learnings from Oil and Gas come over into mining.

Industrial Ethernet/ “Internet of Things” Is it About putting Data in the Cloud? Or Interactivity?

Sorry for missing last week, time seems short when on the road with short flights.

As I fly the final leg home after a month on the road many brainstorming multi day workshops around different strategic thinking, but without a doubt the “Internet of Things’ applied in industrial/ manufacturing space brought up many ideas and many questions.

Certainly the discussion of “Cloud” vs “Internet of things” is it about getting to data from all types of devices and making that more available? Certainly that is one case, but certainly it is not a compelling case.

The “Internet of things” is about self-configuring devices, these could instruments, motors trucks, and mobile devices, fixed and roaming devices. Too many of you the IOT definition I believed was clear, but the workshops showed the confusion between taking and existing industrial application to the “Cloud” connecting through safe but tradition device integration paradigms, vs an interactive “self-configuring” environment of devices and systems, that is a new device integration, management paradigm.

Also, it is important to note it is not just about gathering data from devices to the cloud, and exposing it, the real opportunity comes in the interaction between devices, that the environment make the devices “self-aware” and able to interact. A natural example is that mobile devices of a roaming user is interacting with the other devices in the immediate area. Enabling interacting, and constant awareness and warnings of the current environment state, relative to a stability, and safety. Combine this with ever increasing transformation to managing Operational work vs monitoring, where the “work” or “activity” includes the information, action in the context of “activity”.

The fact that a device is now “self-configuring”, so you can from an IOT system “discover” the devices out there and configure the co-ordination system in the cloud, making other systems aware of them. This is a clear case for segments that are physically distributed such as cities, airports, upstream gas fields, mining, pipelines etc. Where the cost of aligning the devices has been too expensive, now with wireless but even more 4G networks like we seeing in the remote “Pilbara” region on Western Australia, the opportunity for plug and play devices that are “edge/ GPRS” enabled, and IOT enabled can be discovered, configured and aligned. As devices are swapped in and out no matter site the size, the configuration moves from an instrumentation job to anyone. This frictionless experience is key in configuration/ and sustaining. The increased speed of systems, decisions and agility required drives up complexity of systems, but this cannot drive up lifecycle cost, and this can only go away through Self Configuration, enablement of anyone to enable the system to run, this become clear as the key requirement of the IOT.

The chart below shows the expected industry segments to adopt, many are well engaged.

But why is there a slow take up, mainly I believe to unawareness, lack of understanding, and readiness? But this is changing, the IOT platforms are coming on to the market that will drive down the cost of achieving IOT, but it will still be a journey. The diagram below shows from one of the workshops the key challenges in adoption, I expect these to fall away fast over the next 2 to 3 years. I cannot see how we going achieve the agility, with the dynamic market, operational workforce at a sustainable cost that is reasonable without this paradigm shift, to IOT as interactive landscape. In the many sessions I held with end users, engineers and people across the company and industry, the real initial opportunity is not in the big plants it is in the “collaborative Industrial Landscape” of small plants and assets aligning with people and processes.

 Certainly the interest, like cloud is growing, and the infrastructure is maturing that this will be reality in helping to addressing the modern industrial landscape challengers in a very different landscape than we had in 90s, 2000s, and 2010s, I will discuss more on this fundamental event next week.