How Electricity Goes Around the Bend & Where is the Electricity Manager?

The Ghost Town

I recently was on a motorcycle ride to Bodie, a gold rush ghost town in California that is now a state park. I was fortunate enough to be with Mark, who apart from running motorcycle adventure rides, who is also is a bit of a gold rush history buff. He told a story about how electricity was perceived during the boom days at Bodie.

Bodie SHP, CA (California State Parks)

Electricity first came to the gold rush mining towns in the California desert of the Eastern Sierras in the 1890s and it was, as you would expect, quite a spectacle. It brought with it a major change in the way gold was mined and processed and offered great productivity increases.  At the the time there was a common misconception that the electricity power lines had to be run straight because the electricity would shoot out if it there was a bend in the line. Basically it could not flow around a bent or wire that changes direction.  Here is a bit more background from Chat GPT: "Did people believe that electricity can't flow through a bent wire in the gold rush towns?"

"One popular misconception of the time was that electricity followed the path of least resistance. In this context, the notion that electricity could not flow through a bent wire might have arisen. People might have believed that the bent shape of the wire created a higher resistance, hindering the flow of electricity."

Considering that this was a new technology that was brought to remote towns where the living, to say the least, was hard and dangerous such a misconception seems reasonable. Yet we can draw some striking similarities with this scenario and the introduction of digital technologies to manufacturing plants. Manufacturing plants are operational islands where financial survival is always a top priority and digital technology is not fully understood, or maybe understanding it is not the most important priority. Like electricity in the gold rush town, its hard to relate to a new technology that has lofty and even ungrounded promises such as "a fundamental change to how we live and operate" and "an order of magnitude productivity increase".

Managing Electricity

During the 2nd industrial revolution, where we transformed from steam to electricity all plants had an "Electricity Manager". Again Chat-GPT for some wisdom: "what was the role of the electricity manager during the 2nd industrial revolution?"

"Overall, the role of an electricity manager during the Second Industrial Revolution involved overseeing the generation, distribution, and management of electricity. Their responsibilities encompassed technical, safety, operational, and financial aspects to ensure the reliable and efficient supply of electrical power to support industrial and societal advancements during this transformative period."

So clearly we do not have this role in our manufacturing plants today, we simply pay for electricity as a service. Does this sounds eerily similar to the current roles of CIO or CDO in managing digital technology? What is the destiny of IT organization and CIOs? Will XaaS (Anything as a Service) become common place and make IT redundant?

Oh the Skepticism

I tell these stories to most skeptics that I meet in an attempt to explain that a new paradigm requires new thinking. We will not be able to experience productivity increases until we realize that what we have at our hands is so different than anything we have seen before. In other words electricity does flow around bent wires, data is safe in the cloud, citizen developers can build complex systems, you can validate a solution in hours, control of democratized technology is easy, IIoT can be safe, it's also for all size companies, etc. Oh and one more that is quite controversial; MES, LIMS, WMS, etc. are not digital technologies - they are relics of the previous industrial age (industry 3.0). They are what steam was to electricity!

The challenge that I face on a daily basis is how to dispel the myths of digital technology and relieve the skepticism that is inherent in most manufacturing organizations? This is in the perspective of the bigger challenge that is how do we plan to transform industry so they can start capitalizing at the order of magnitude productivity gains. In the words of Søren Kierkegaard: "Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

Are we seeing the return of the Custom MES, or is it something else? (Re-Posted)

The role of MES in the Industry 4.0 reality is a topic of debate and a source of critical misinformation. In general MES belongs to the era of automation and computer integrated manufacturing, i.e. Industry 3.0. MES or MoM came about in the 1990s to solve the challenges of coordinating and executing work on shop floors with the advent of computers. It really is a relic of the previous industrial era.

The challenge of coordinating and executing work on shop floors however has not changed. Manufacturing is increasing in complexity and the need to adapt to changing business requirements is accelerating. At the same time the advancement in computer technologies have ushered a new digital era that we now call Industry 4.0. How do we solve the shop floor operational challenge with these new technologies?

Are these new digital technologies making it attractive and maybe even necessary to develop custom manufacturing systems solutions, or custom MESs? For years we have advocated that companies focus on their core business competencies and leave the software development to expert best in class software companies. There are many horror stories of companies that are stuck supporting custom built software that is running their critical operations, why build and spend millions maintaining in house developed systems?

Yet the need to tailored solutions for shop floor operations is still valid and in fact even more critical as the rate of change to the business environment coupled with operational complexity increases. It seems like a case of history repeating itself since that is how MESs started in the 80s, however technologies have vastly evolved since. With the digital technologies that are now available we are going well past the simple ability to customize. We are taking a very different approach that is operations and human centric. It allows us to rapidly create tailored solutions that increase productivity by supporting frontline operators for each specific operation and activity.

This allows companies to once again opt to develop custom solutions to solve their manufacturing systems needs. Yet this time around they do not look like MES of the past, they are not custom solutions that are unique and require high cost and effort to manage and maintain. In the digital era solutions are built rapidly by the people that are closest to the operations, they are tailored to the frontline operator and help increase their productivity and all of this in a Cloud-Edge infrastructure that allows easy management and governance. There are a number of forces at play that are causing this to happen.

Emerging digital technologies, specifically no-code cloud based SaaS platforms provide user friendly ways to build tailored digital content with very quick ramp-up times. I.e. you don’t need software development skills. There is a real business need to get the promised productivity gains from these digital technologies. In other words organizations have allocated money and people to get things moving in their digital transformation.

The new generation of workforce comes from the digital age (i.e. digital natives) and are used to in simple words, just download an app for that. They are confronted with what they see as antiquated software systems that are not really user friendly and their reaction is to find another app. The new digital technologies aimed at the manufacturing operations space are in general human centered – they aim to solve (and support) what we as people do, whereas traditional MES is developed to automate a process.

Modern cloud and edge technologies provide a rich playing field for integration and capture of digital data to help bridge the digital divide. I.e. start capitalizing on productivity improvements while not having to decommission existing traditional systems.    

The transformational forces at play are unstoppable at this point. The high skill and expertise level required to implement and maintain the current IT/OT owned systems are becoming a thing of the past. The new tailored manufacturing solutions can be built at a unprecedented speeds by people that are closer to the actual manufacturing process. We will not have unique and specific monolithic systems for each department or business function. The future digital factory will be supported by a network of digital components, apps, edge devices and tools will have been composed in a iterative and agile process, ie bottom-up. Solutions will emerge and mature over time based on continuous improvement rather than a top-down design and development process. With that traditional hierarchical thinking and approaches such as ISA-95/88 will become less relevant unless they are adjusted to fit the new digital reality.

Are we then seeing a case of history repeating itself? Will we see a resurgence of home grown MES solutions that we will in a few years pay dearly to maintain or replace? The answer is yes but not what you might expect. There will be some level of custom software being built but at the same time what we will se are tailored solutions that do not carry the burden of the custom system of the past. Modern digital technologies such as no-code platforms are democratizing the manufacturing systems landscape. They are transforming manufacturing systems software development to a process of composing digital content for the shop floor. They are more of an engineering and operations toolset rather than an IT system. Again we might use the term MES but these new solution will really not look like anything that resembles current MESs, they will consist of digital content that support human operations and digitize all activities and process in the plant. They provide unprecedented levels of detail in the form digital data that is easy to use, analyze and interpret. They provide the foundation for digital maturity toward the predictive and adaptable states in Industry 4.0. Companies adopting these platforms will be able to accelerate their maturity and their digital transformation.

This is a reposting of an article in Engineers Outlook and is based on a previous post on this blog The return of custom built manufacturing software.

The Waste of not having Digital Data

My team started using Monday.com around a year ago. We needed a project management tool and Monday.com was our tool of choice. When I looked at it initially it seemed like any other project management tool, albeit cloud based and much more user friendly. Some may even consider it a glorified (or maybe more appropriately specialized) spreadsheet.   

I didn't think about it much, it was a PM tool and its use included the typical interaction as a project team member and for operational oversight. After a few month the team started showing graphs and charts based on the data that it captured. We could now easily see how long tasks take, how many project were over time, hours logged on projects, and more. As time progressed we had more and more data about our project execution and delivery operation. With that we started making better and more informed decisions such as optimizing teams, identifying risky projects, how many projects we are able to effectively run simultaneously, resource balancing, and much more. Then the team started putting in alerts, e.g. projects overdue, risk not being mitigated, and proactive actions. A year into using the tool we have now a services operations that is predictive and adaptable (this is a reference to the Industry 4.0 maturity model below) all on the merit of real time granular data that we is being captured just from us doing our job - without any extra or special effort in data collection.  

Industry 4.0 Maturity Model

Here is a tool that on first glance seems like just another PM tool. However since its a modern digital tool it instruments the project tracking and management process, capturing detailed data about every tasks and making that data intuitively available for all to use. That is the power of digitations, we see in all digital tools but it sometimes is lost on us when we reflect on something that we have done forever. For example Google, Facebook, Amazon all do this inherently - they capture granular data of everything. and with that data they are able to learn, improve and act.  This is what happens when you instrument your operation with a digital tool.

So if we take this as an example and reflect on any manufacturing operation it means that as a start we have to instrument and digitize. However the way this is approached in most manufacturing shop floors that I have experienced is by complicated data capture systems that require not only a immense effort in implementation but also constant battles from the frontline to use. Inputting data by the operator is typically an additional task they have to do, its not serving them any, it does it provide value to them and is essentially a form of waste. This results and data silos, or as how I like to call them "data puddles" that really do not provide much more than some isolated metrics. 

That of course is if there is any data capture at all! Many manufacturing operation are still operating with manual data and information in the form of paper, performance whiteboards, isolated spreadsheets, visual boards, etc. 

A compilation of photos from different shop floors I have visited.

We have to make the connection here, transforming digitally is not just another IT/OT exercise, its not a project you can execute to implement data capture technology (see post about crossing the digital divide). True digital technology is adopted not implemented, it starts by taking some manual task or operations and instrumenting them like Monday.com does for project execution. The first step in any digital transformation journey is to start to instrument your operation by providing digital tools to your operators that help do their job while at the same time collecting data - not the other way around. 

The interesting thing about doing it this way is that its in fact pretty easy, and at the same time seamless for your operations to adopt. Simply because it helps them do their job, and provide immediate feedback thru data visibility about their operation. It is how they become more productive, and productivity is what digital transformation is all about.  

With that in mind the simple way to start any digital transformation project is to do a Gemba walk to identify the waste of paper or no data. Find the places where instrumenting a process can provide a quick productivity increase. Instrument the process with a digital tool and see experience the boost yourself. Think of PDCA cycle with this level of granular and real time data. That is what digital transformation is all about.

Remember this can only be done by a digital tool that can be adopted (implemented, and used) with no specialized skills (democratized) and fast - within a few hours. Be warned a technology that does not provide these basic requirement, i.e. democratized and fast time-to-value, is not true digital (Industry 4.0) technology.

How to Cross the Manufacturing Digital Divide

I find that there is a lot misguidance around what we in general frame up as the "fourth industrial revolution". I think most people accept that its real but have a hard time sifting through what digital technology is and is not. The biggest misconception is that any computerized system is digital technology, its like saying that steam and electricity are the same thing (this is a reference to the 1st and 2nd industrial revolutions). 

I like to use the term "digital divide" to emphasize the paradigm shift that is industry 4.0. The digital divide is like big great canyon (imagine the Grand Canyon). 

Imagine that you are standing on one side (industry 3.0) and need to cross over to the other side (industry 4.0) in order to gain the benefits of the new paradigm. This is quite a feat, not easy and not something that you don't just do - you can't just step over to the other side. It requires a concerted effort, conviction and of course means to take your company over to the other side. 

The problem here is that people have differing views of this digital divide (canyon) is. Some of course don't believe there is one, some think its a little crevasse they can step over, and then every variation of size from there on. Regardless of what you believe, the closer you get to the rim of the digital divide the more its true size becomes apparent. In other words its by trying to transform you learn how much of a paradigm shift Industry 4.0 is, however if you keep circling on the one side of the divide you will never know what is on the other side. I say that because there is much confusion and misguidance around what is and is not digital technologies. Many struggle to differentiate between the set of monolithic application such as MES, WMS, FMS, etc. that are foundationally the realization of the CIM concept, with the new agile app based platforms on cloud and edge architectures which are part of the new paradigm. It doesn't help that many of the concepts that we consider a paradigm shift and transformational have in fact existed for a while. The most common is AI, that has arguably been around for over 60 years and is now becoming pervasive, yes ChatGPT again... but in reality in many gadgets and things.  Another lesser known are multi-agent systems which is really at the core of IIoT and collaborative manufacturing equipment, i.e. collaborative robots. 

 

So what does the other side of the digital divide look like - what does a smart factory look like? It is a digitally transformed facility and operation that is reaping the benefits of increased productivity. Not just a step increase but in fact a factory that experiences an order of magnitude productivity gain! It is this productivity gain that comes with crossing the digital divide. It is what we need to aim and think about, when talking digital transformation. It must be the vision and the clear long-term goal and with a clear goal it is easier to prioritize which technology to try first and where or what to digitally transform first, in other words define a strategy that will take you across the canyon.

Although it may not be easy to paint a precise picture of what the future smart factory should look yet, it is possible to draw a picture of how such a smart factory behaves and operates, and what productivity increases to expect. Already in the 90s researchers were able to draw a picture of smart factories. This view can be reinforced with results from companies that have embraced the digital reality and relevant technological advances are already enjoying higher levels of productivity. What characterizes these companies is that they embraced a culture of change where adoption of new digital technologies is weaved into the continuous improvement processes. They have a "hacker" culture where digital native employees do not settle for aging monolithic systems, paper based processes, and antiquated methods.

This all means that we do need to seriously start changing cultures and adopting true digital technologies even if there not fully matured - because digital transformation is here! Call it what you want, Industry 4.0, Pharma 4.0 or Smart Manufacturing, its here, the future is now. Don't settle with rebranding your existing technologies, imagine if you went back to the future, would you still do things the same way? Transforming companies is may passion and it tickles me to see this unfold in industry - we dreamed about in the late 1990's!. 

So my advice is as follows:

Change is hard and takes time, understanding a new paradigm comes from adoption and experiencing tangible results - remember these results are not single digit improvement, the need to be "order of magnitude. Define a strategy that takes into account that interesting and valuable technological advances are still to come, embrace change and weave it into your strategy and culture. Get close to the rim of the canyon and get a good view of the other side! 

"Most people are afraid of change, but if you look at it as something you can always count on, then it can be a comfort." 

Robert Kincaid (Clint Eastwood)