Why is the (Level 2-3) platform key to the future state?

I seem to end up in many discussions between IT/OT, the convergence that is required in order to achieve today’s agility. It is really is the transition of existing operational / business systems from “open Loop” to “Closed Loop”. For many of us from the control world this is just extending the “closed loop” control approaches to the supervisory/ operational architectures, but with longer periods.

Imagining the possible – if we didn’t have the burden of IT legacy

For years organization, IT infra structure/ architecture have caused silos, and boundaries to be set up between departments and different levels in an organization. The IT/ OT convergence of has been driving to integrate or break these down, but too often it is gluing the existing structure and with this comes a lot of the limitations of the original structure.

Many IT systems have institutionalized the “pyramid and boxes” design…along with its fundamental design flaws that are at the root cause of our integration challenges. The different streams have different time, different context, different language. This drives the glue to how to map these different context/ time slices etc.

Imagine if we took a different approach of “integrated digital streams” aligned centered on the product/ service for the customer/ market. Imagine if you could have a system as shown below:

From static silos of data (low-res snapshots) to integrated digital streams (high-res movies), where the streams of data are aligned , captured for one goal of competitive delivery. 

This requires a different thinking to the traditional IT, and too often when engaging customers they are struggling with gaining this operational agility, often hamstrung by the traditional organization/ and It structures. 

The diagram above provides a vision of if we were freed to think of solutions outside today's boundaries.

Information Technology/Operations Technology (IT/OT) for the Oil and Gas Industry

Blog from Stan DeVries

Since 2006, some oil & gas companies have attempted to align what has been called IT and OT with different organization approaches.  It is valuable to consider what these two “worlds” are:

The world of IT is focused on corporate functions, such as ERP, e-mail, office tools etc.  The following key characteristics apply:

•          The dominant verb is “manage”.
•          Systems design assumes that humans are the “end points” – information flows begin and end with humans.
•          The focus is on financial aspects – revenue, margins, earning per share, taxes etc.
•          The focus is also on cross-functional orchestration of the corporate supply chain
•          The main technique is reporting – across all sites in the corporation.
•          One of the methods is to enforce a standard interface between enterprise applications (especially ERP) and the plants/oil fields/refineries/terminals.
•          Policies for managing information are mostly homogenous, and the primary risk is loss of data.

In contrast, the world of OT is focused on plant operations functions.  The following key characteristics apply:

•          The dominant verb is “control”.
•          Systems design assumes that “things” (equipment, materials, product specifications etc.) are the “end points” – information flows can begin and end without humans.
•          The focus is on operational aspects – quality, throughput, efficiency etc.
•          The focus is also on providing detailed instructions for operations areas – to equipment and to humans
•          The main technique is controlling – within a related group of sites or a single site.
•          One of the methods is to accommodate multiple protocols and equipment interfaces.
•          Policies are usually diverse and asset-specific; risk includes loss of data, loss of life, loss of environment, loss of product and loss of equipment.

These two worlds must be integrated but their requirements and strategies must be kept separate.  The following diagram suggests a strategy to achieve this:

The above diagram recommends the following methods to bridge these two worlds:

•          Use a “value generation” metric to justify and harmonize the equal importance of these two worlds.  “Value” can be measured both in terms of financial value (more on this below) and in terms of risk.
•          Reconcile units of measure using thorough activity-based costing, down to senior operators and the technicians which support them.
•          Correctly aggregate and disaggregate information at the appropriate frequency.  Operators require hourly information (in some industries, every 15 minutes).
•          Centralize and distribute information with an approach called “holistic consistency” – allow for the diversity of information structures and names for each area of operation, but enforce consistent structure and naming between sites (or in some cases, between operations areas).
•          Integrate and interoperate with appropriate methods and standards, which must address visualization, mobility, access and other aspects as well as information.
•          Apply a consistent cybersecurity approach across multiple areas of the IT/OT system, allowing for information to flow “down” and “across”.  An “air gap” approach has been proven to be unsustainable, but a multi-level approach called “defense in depth” has been proven to be effective and practical.

Oil and gas companies have implemented a variety of organization structures for bridging these two worlds.  Some companies divide IT into two areas, called Infrastructure and Transformation.  New technologies which are strongly linked to new ways of working are first managed by the Transformation section of IT, and then as these mature, they are transferred to Infrastructure.  The main functions of OT are closely linked to Transformation, because operations can continue without OT – OT is almost always a value-add.  We observe the following organizational approaches:

•         IT reporting to Finance, and OT reporting to Engineering/Technical Services or to Operations
•         OT reporting to Transformational IT, with an operations-background IT executive

Regardless of the organization approach, the objectives are reliable and business-effective improvement, whether in the office or in the sites.

A Different Approach to Design Operational Systems is Needed!!!

I have had the opportunity to review some new strategies of some companies are taking to designing their systems for operations in 2020 to 2030, and I am pleased to see they have taken not just a technology approach. But really turn around and looked at “who they will execute work across their value supply chain” focusing on how they will have operate in this period then how they will be executing their work to achieve this.

Now technology is key as it will enable vision to be achieved in “agile “ world, while making it a sustainable evolution.

The diagram below illustrates our current summary of change in thinking needed in approach the bigger picture programs.