Great opportunity…How to accelerate adoption and reap the benefits?

Alvaro Cuba

Science Fiction made a reality…WiFI sensors capturing real time data across the shop floor combined with the power of AI to monitor the operation, anticipate issues, prescribe solutions and, communication directly with the operator and others for immediate action. Machine + Process Health is exactly this and is transforming manufacturing plants and supply chains. We read in the post last week a good example by Invista powered by the Baker Hughes / Augury solution and the immediate results…The tip of the iceberg.

We are seeing the impacts, and discussing some in this Community: on Top line (more throughput, better CFR, predictive quality,…), on Bottom line (efficiency, yield, productivity, less waste and downtime,…), in Cash (less inventory and spare par,…) and in Safety. We see through the Augury implementations 4 to 7 ROIs, and in months not years. Plus other benefits on reliability, sustainability and resilience that are experiencing the companies already doing US and Global rollouts.  

I would add to the hard benefits those to the organization and people in the plant and corporate: empowerment, training, onboarding, talent attraction (specially young people), capability increase to mention some.

Question for the community…given the above, why is adoption and rollout still slow? I would offer three areas I have seen opportunities in:  benchmark to understand what competitors and others are doing and benefiting from; holistic view of the manufacturing line and its operation; and, change management for all involved. Just a thought starter…open forum and welcome all thoughts and ideas to help adoption and reap the benefits…

Terry LeDoux

Alvaro,

Great thread and well presented. I can only speak to my personal experience.

We saw this many times and there were two primary issues. Prioritization and Project Management. As all factory folks know, there are a 1000 priorities everyday in the factory. Safety, quality and production being the top three in that order. Sometimes the perpetual spiral of constant upset events that require immediate response consume the resources needed to complete the expansion of Augury. Hard to break the cycle if consumer demand and the production need continue to prevent forward movement.

This is where quality project management proved of high value to our team. Through project tracking and stakeholder communication (monthly cadence), we were able to speak honestly between senior leadership and site leadership. Often we were able to modify schedules or apply outside resources to move forward. Just like Augury, project management allowed us to create a high level of transparency and talk honestly about what was needed to move forward. It also created a higher level of ownership and prioritization. In manufacturing there is no free time, so something has to stop to get the priority projects done and this required agreement and commitment across the organization.

Often times it is Corporate senior leadership driving the number of priorities within a factory without really have clear visibility to the number of projects or effort required of the manufacturing site. Giving senior leadership a view of these many priorities can be a sobering wake up call. You must prioritize as the site cannot do all of the projects at once with existing staff.

Great stuff. Thanks Alvaro

Alvaro Cuba

Excellent adds Terry…And project management go hand in hand with change management. If Corporate and Plant people have the buy in on the easy implementation and the huge benefits across all areas and indicators, prioritization and sense or urgency will come and ease the process.

Thank you!

Scott Reed

Terry mentions many of the issues that create conflicts adoption and scaling impacts. I would also offer other change management impacts affecting the workforce such as competing goals, metrics, agendas or the lack of purposeful incentives. The culture within the factory can also be an impact - not invented here; we solve our own problems; we set the standard, etc.. From my experience, the human factor is 99% of adoption success or failure. Getting out in front of this at all levels of the organization, with common goals, clear communication and incenting behaviors is an absolute.