IT in Manufacturing


Expert advice for a stress-free digital transformation journey

May 2021 IT in Manufacturing

Rather than reacting to change, or allowing themselves to be disrupted by it, forward-looking industry leaders are investing in digital transformation (DX) to adapt, achieve operational excellence and outperform peers. At Yokogawa’s 'Y-NOW 2020: DX Solutions for Tomorrow' event, speakers from Braskem, Chevron, KBC (A Yokogawa Company), Koch Industries and Valero, provided considerable guidance to those who are seeking best practices for their next steps in the digital transformation journey.

1. Plan around business objectives

“The journey begins with a digital roadmap,” stated Lívia Tizzo, Digital Innovation lead at Braskem. “The roadmap is a strategic business plan to bring change to the company. It is all-encompassing in the organisation and goes beyond technology, IT and OT.”

According to Lisa Williams, director, Digital Management at KBC, “Digital transformations promise the implementation of new technology to improve processes and allow people to excel. However, skipping to the finish line can delay projects and deflate the organisation’s motivation. Preparation and working on concentrated areas with an agile methodology is bringing success to DX efforts.”

Howard Elton, Process Control and Automation leader for Koch Industries, explained that his team began working on a roadmap that would lead to the plant of the future: “The first three years focus on milestones designated as ‘foundation’, ‘transition’ and ‘transform.’ It doesn’t need to be complicated and it doesn’t need to be perfect. It’s a journey, not an event.”

Andy Howell, CEO of KBC added, “It is very important for business objectives and the customer experience, rather than the technology, to be the drivers. It is also not a matter of simply taking existing processes and automating or digitalising them.”

2. Buy-in and change agents

Howell stated, “The team must obtain buy-in from stakeholders, those who are the prospective users of the new business processes and technology.” To which Williams added, “You cannot take an ‘if you build it, they will come’ approach.”

Tizzo’s experience is that it is critical to incentivise leaders and deploy common and measurable objectives for all managers across the organisation: “Unless the company adds new positions at the management or board levels with change agents enabled, progress will be limited.”

Regarding buy-in, Williams said that the most common pitfalls to avoid are related to communication: “If people are unaware of the reasons for the change, they are not willing to accept it and there is a lack of flexibility.”

DX requires good data

The experts all agree that a solid data foundation is a prerequisite to a digitally transformed enterprise. According to Jeff Bull, senior manager, Refinery Models at Valero, “Applying advanced methods will fall apart if the information feeding them is inaccurate and unreliable. If an organisation is not willing to take the steps necessary to establish a solid data foundation before applying advanced analytical methods, the likelihood that the tools will provide the correct answer is greatly diminished. Using tools to assess data quality is a vital step within any digital journey. Evaluate data sources. You probably have too many. Pare down to a reasonable number of data sources and software packages used to obtain that data. The ultimate goal is to connect corporate subject matter experts directly to the primary data sources.”

Nick Kenaston, technical team leader – Oils Planning at Chevron added, “Data quality is still a big challenge, but now there are novel ways to fill in data gaps. The convergence of first principles models and machine learning can help. This is a revolutionary approach to solving problems.”

A single version of the truth is critical

According to Bull, the Valero team knew that a single version of the truth was essential. The company is using Yokogawa/KBC’s Petro-SIM digital twin, which is based on a first principles model. “Using the model-based balancing and calculations in Petro-SIM, we were able to identify the results, collectively, as the one version of the truth for yield performance,” he said. “We need to have that reliance on a single set of information that everybody trusts as what actually happened, so that we can discuss what occurred yesterday, use that information to decide what we will do today and then what we will do tomorrow.”

Conclusions

Throughout the energy industries, digital transformation is no longer viewed as a matter of investigation and experimentation, but a strategic imperative linked to a company’s survival. The journey begins with a digital roadmap. Detailed planning is an absolute requirement. Efforts to skip to the finish line will end up delaying the project and deplete the organisation’s motivation to continue.

On the other hand, the program team should plan milestones in an agile manner and leadership must not be distracted by technology, but focus instead on C-suite objectives.

With any transformation, buy-in is critical. The DX team must secure it from the stakeholders, those who are the prospective users of the new business processes and technology.

Strong communication is a key, but ultimately, a successful digital transformation requires good data. The team must invest considerable effort in the evaluation of data sources and reconciliation. It is very important to deploy one, agreed-upon system, or ‘single source of truth’, which is available to everyone.

The transformed enterprise encompasses new business processes and technologies in terms of assets, operations and people, with analytics and business decision support provided through digital twin technology.


Credit(s)



Share this article:
Share via emailShare via LinkedInPrint this page

Further reading:

Unlocking mining efficiency with advanced processing control
IT in Manufacturing
ABB’s Advanced Process Control system, powered by its Expert Optimizer platform, is emerging as a key enabler of smarter, more efficient mining operations.

Read more...
PC-based control regulates innovative dehumidifiers
Beckhoff Automation IT in Manufacturing
The Swedish company Airwatergreen AB is breaking new ground in the dehumidification of air in industrial buildings and warehouses. PC-based control from Beckhoff regulates the innovative process.

Read more...
Harnessing AI and satellite imagery to estimate water levels in dams
IT in Manufacturing
Farmers and water managers often struggle to accurately estimate and monitor the available water in dams. To address the challenge, International Water Management Institute researchers have worked with Digital Earth Africa to create an innovation that uses satellite images and AI to get timely and accurate dam volume measurements.

Read more...
Why industry should enter the world of operator training simulators
Schneider Electric South Africa IT in Manufacturing
System-agnostic operator training simulator (OTS) software is a somewhat unsung hero of industry that trains plant operators in a virtual world that mirrors real-world operations. The benefits are multiple.

Read more...
Track busway for scalable data centre power delivery
IT in Manufacturing
The latest generation Legrand Data Centre Track Busway technology addresses the operational pressures facing today’s high-density, AI-intensive computing environments and is being well received by data centre facilities around the world.

Read more...
Poor heat management in data centre design
IT in Manufacturing
Designing a world-class data centre goes beyond simply keeping servers on during load shedding; it is about ensuring they run efficiently, reliably, and within the precise environmental conditions they were built and designed for.

Read more...
It’s time to fight AI with AI in the battle for cyber resilience
IT in Manufacturing
Cybercrime is evolving rapidly, and the nature of cyber threats has shifted dramatically. Attacks are now increasingly powered by AI, accelerating their speed, scale and sophistication. Cybersecurity needs to become part of business-critical strategy, powered by AI to match attackers’ speed with smarter, faster and more adaptive defences.

Read more...
Why AI sustainability must be a boardroom priority
IT in Manufacturing
As South African companies race to harness artificial intelligence for innovation and growth, few are asking the most critical question - the environmental cost.

Read more...
RS South Africa shines spotlight on MRO procurement
RS South Africa IT in Manufacturing
RS South Africa has highlighted the growing pressures faced by procurement professionals responsible for maintenance, repair and operations supplies across the country’s vital economic sectors.

Read more...
Sustainable energy management
Siemens South Africa IT in Manufacturing
Utilising its innovative ONE approach technology, Siemens provides complete transparency on resource consumption and offers data-driven optimisation recommendations for sustainable energy management.

Read more...









While every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the information contained herein, the publisher and its agents cannot be held responsible for any errors contained, or any loss incurred as a result. Articles published do not necessarily reflect the views of the publishers. The editor reserves the right to alter or cut copy. Articles submitted are deemed to have been cleared for publication. Advertisements and company contact details are published as provided by the advertiser. Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd cannot be held responsible for the accuracy or veracity of supplied material.




© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved