Industrial Transformation Blog

2018 was a year of much change and progress in the world of environment, health and safety (EHS) management; especially the software and digital technologies that enable it. This made for an exciting year for EHS management research here at LNS. The primary focus was on expanding our market-leading EHS 4.0 research on the Digital Transformation of EHS management. We released our full agenda of research on topics such as Big Data and predictive analytics, the impact of the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) on safety, integrated risk management, the connected industrial worker, and the convergence of safety, quality, and risk in plant operations, among others.

Research analysts from LNS attended the Plex Systems Analyst Day in early November at the company’s headquarters in Troy, Michigan. In an unusual move, Plex hosted its Customer Advisory Board (CAB) concurrently, giving customers and analysts a chance to interact directly. This level of direct access is rare among software vendors and demonstrates a strong show of confidence by the Plex executive team. The Plex CAB includes representatives from companies in automotive, metal forming, food and beverage (F&B), aerospace and defense (A&D), and other discrete and batch manufacturing industries.

LNS Research attended the Rockwell Automation Fair in Philadelphia, PA on November 14 and 15, 2018. Rockwell Automation® (NYSE: ROK) is an industrial automation and information company with $6.7 Billion in sales and 23,000 employees. This was the 27th annual Rockwell Automation Fair hosted to demonstrate their products and those of their ecosystem partners. Rockwell Automation noted there were over 8,000 customers at the event making it the largest Rockwell Automation Fair ever held outside of Chicago. They also hosted “Automation Perspectives” for the media and analysts on November 13.

The #MondayMusings Industrial Transformation blog series provides insight and analysis for executives from the previous week’s briefings, events, and publications @LNSResearch.

LNS recently attended the AVEVA World Summit 2018 in La Quinta, California. Over 300 business executives from 33 countries participated in the event themed around “Your Digital Transformation: A Strategic Roadmap.” The event was a key opportunity for the company to position the “new” AVEVA given the recent merger with the Schneider Electric Software business. The company also had to highlight the Digital Transformation journeys of several of its customers.

In mid-2017, LNS Research identified that an early but significant group of manufacturers had begun to recognize Quality 4.0 as one of their top Industrial Transformation initiatives. LNS coined the term Quality 4.0 and defined the space - why to adopt Quality 4.0, and how to build a successful strategy. Over time, the interest in Quality 4.0 has continued to accelerate, and many manufacturers are now either investigating Quality 4.0 or deploying early pilots .

LNS recently attended Emerson Global Users Exchange, the user conference by Emerson was held in Texas from October 1-5. One of the consistent messages from the Emerson team is their drive to help clients reach top quartile performance. This year was no different, the message was clear - process industries need to achieve excellence in reliability, safety, production, energy and emissions; and Emerson’ portfolio of software, hardware, and consulting services will help clients achieve that top quartile performance in process operations and capital project execution.

In the 18 months since LNS coined Quality 4.0 and provided the definitive frameworks, manufacturers throughout the supply chain, across industries, and of varied company sizes have aggressively pursued Quality 4.0 technology and use cases. Today, 64% of manufacturers are pursuing Digital Transformation, and of these, 23% are pursuing quality improvement use cases. A low hanging fruit, Quality 4.0 is one of the top use cases of Digital Transformation initiatives.

Our journey through the Analytics That Matter series has shown that the Operational Architecture is a critical factor in building an analytics environment that can deliver value at all levels (descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive). It’s also clear that where Operational Architecture is concerned, one size does not fit all. Operational Architecture is one piece of the operational and data model puzzle manufacturers need to ensure success. Many industrial organizations ask, “Why doesn’t one size fit all?” Let’s explore that statement and explain why right-sizing each element is key for success.

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On Thursday, August 23, LNS Research hosted the webcast, “Analytics That Matter: A Fresh Perspective on Operational Architecture.” The presentation explained the results of the 2018 Analytics that Matter survey and helped industrial executives understand a new dimension of Operational Architecture. The discussion also covered the data and analytics architecture that powers Digital Transformation goals.

Some things are good on their own, but simply better when paired with something else. Take peanut butter and jelly, wine and cheese, or as many of us are reminded at this time of year, the beach and sunscreen. However, sometimes better together is more than just the sum of individual ingredients, like chemical reactions. For instance, internal combustion is the combination of fuel, oxygen, compression, and a spark resulting in much more than a static mix of its respective parts. This is true with quality, and environmental, health, and safety (EHS).

Quality and EHS management systems have increasingly converged over the past several years, enabled by the efforts of standards organizations such as ISO. Combining these two previously disparate management systems into one is a better together story, with shared competencies, culture, data, and processes. However, when we combine these management systems with Digital Transformation, we create something more like a chemical reaction.