Changes You Need to Make to Survive in a Digital-First World

Unless you have been in a time capsule for the past 20 years, you can’t help but notice how the world is moving to digital everything. We have immediate and instant access to information from around the world including music, art, history, economics, science, religion, weather, culture, product research… you name it and our portal to this information can fit into our pocket. And now COVID is driving the workplace to work from home and remote teaming. This has been a cultural paradigm shift for many organizations but also brings with it many, many great advantages: Commute times are now repurposed for higher value tasks; Great minds no longer must co-exist geographically. The best teams, from a mindshare perspective, can be assembled without the restriction of geography.

Manufacturers must have people to run machines, yet many of the plant support roles can be done remotely through digital tools. This remote support capability helps companies leverage talent from the entire corporation and not just those local on-site.

However, there are likely changes that need to be made to make work in a digital-first world effective and rewarding. These changes include:

• Getting digital representations of the manufacturing processes and flow in front of all who need it
• Deploying solutions that are “Digital at the point of entry” and providing the relevant data to ALL key personnel to analyze performance and generate actionable improvement plans.
• Ensuring that work tasks are electronically documented and electronically measured.

Organizations not only need these technologies, but they need them quickly. They need technologies that do not take years to implement. In fact, overnight would be preferred. So, here are three AVEVA technologies that can be implemented quickly and provide a high level of digitization to support the modern digital-first work force.

AVEVA Discrete Lean Management (DLM)

AVEVA Discrete Lean Management is a commercial off-the-shelf software that improves discrete manufacturing productivity through a set of ready to use digital tools for Lean management. DLM replaces time-consuming paperwork used for work management and data collection.  As manufacturers seek to increase their operational efficiency and flexibility, AVEVA Discrete Lean Management helps to:
• Continuously improve your operational effectiveness by measuring, visualizing, and analyzing your manufacturing performance with proven lean management practices and KPIs for both manual and automated production lines.
• Empower your production teams to quickly respond to production issues and reduce production losses with near real time visibility into production events and KPIs on dashboards and mobile devices.
• Reduce human error and replace paper prints with centralized and orchestrated access to work order information and always up to date digital work instructions.
This off-the-shelf solution can be implemented in weeks, not years, giving manufacturers of discrete products quick digital transformation wins.

Unlimited AVEVA InTouch

Unlimited InTouch is the ultimate in overnight digital solutions. Moving existing InTouch HMI and SCADA solutions to “Unlimited” enables the democratization of access to your manufacturing processes. No more managing of I/O or user counts. Unlimited AVEVA™ InTouch HMI empowers customers and system builders to digitize and build ’connected operations’ and achieve increased productivity and efficiencies by connecting to any device and providing real-time visualization on any device, any time, any-where. This enables more engineers and technicians who are now working in rotations from home and/or troubleshooting from the front offices access to plant floor operations. There may be light at the end of the tunnel when looking for an end to the pandemic with vaccines being distributed, but because of the efficiencies gained from remote work we believe remote workers are here to stay. Let’s give them the tools they need to be most productive.

AVEVA Work Tasks

AVEVA Work Tasks is advanced industrial workflow management software and connected worker solution for the digital transformation of work. Digitally model, execute, monitor and analyze work processes to achieve higher levels of work efficiency and productivity, and to reduce noncompliance risks and human error.
Eliminate the delays, errors and efforts related to manual data entry and capture all details and data of work tasks execution for compliance reporting and for the continuous improvement of work processes.
Improve operational efficiency through enforcement of standard operational procedures (SOPs), and increase productivity through digital collaboration of functional teams and related systems. Eliminate paper documents with electronic forms and use improved information views to mitigate risks associated with manual processes and capture the knowledge of an ageing workforce.  The drag-and-drop forms editor and process flow charting capability enables manufacturers to rapidly start modeling their processes.

As we all are learning, to not only survive, but thrive, in a Digital-First World, requires effort. But in the end, the results often exceed our expectations and imaginations.