A company’s best asset: People

Yes, companies have to produce products to succeed. Yes, success comes from pushing as much product out the door as possible because that can potentially increase profitability.
To achieve all of that success and profitability all manufacturers have to rely on their greatest asset. No, it is not the latest technology, but rather the people that push that technology to the edge.
“So much information is locked up in your systems. What we have to do is unlock that information so you can make real time decisions,” said Peter Martin, vice president at Invensys and keynote speaker at WonderWorld 2007 Global Conference Series in Las Vegas.
‘Today, people talk about islands of automation and islands of information,” Martin said. “But I am here to tell you they should not exist. Technology is not the problem. What is? We are the problem. We have islands of people that don’t really like to talk to each other.”
Martin talked about breaking down the traditional barriers companies throw up that ultimately prevent greater success.
He said in many cases, companies see a problem and they throw technology at it to solve the issue. Of course, he said, that doesn’t work. He said with the advent of specialization, different organizations are so focused on what they do, they don’t understand what other areas are doing.
“The value of your organization is tied up in your people,” he said. “The quality of talent has gone up, but we continue to hold them down. While we are doing that, we have had an automation and an information revolution, but we continue to hold people down. We have to change our mindset.”
Most decisions that either help or hurt a company are made from the front line operators, so, Martin said, the technology should empower them to make decisions that will help the company achieve greater profitability and success.
“We have to convert our front line people to become automation craftsmen and then business craftsmen,” he said. “We can’t continue working the way we did 20 years ago. The speed of business changes daily. We need to get a real time operational, strategic and business metrics.”
Rashesh Mody, vice president of HMI/SCADA at Wonderware agreed.
“There is lots of information hitting an operator’s screen. They don’t need stale data. Screen space is valuable real estate. Our goal is to give operators actionable information on the screen.”