Manufacturing IT Forum: Know the goal and work toward it

It doesn’t matter what the job function is, the end result is you or your department should not be an obstruction to the profit center for a company, said today’s keynote speaker at the ISA Manufacturing IT Forum in Cleveland.
“You have to look at what generates the wealth,” said Clifford Pederson, the former manager of product production processes at Suncor Energy Inc. “IT doesn’t generate the wealth. What we pull out of the ground generates the wealth.”
Suncor is one of the leading oil producers in the Oil Sands project going on in Northern Canada. Suncor is on line to produce over 500,000 barrels of oil a day by 2010.
“If you don’t help generate the wealth, then you can be a hindrance to the company.”
It is easy to understand why there is a conflict, Pederson said. IT has different priorities. IT wants system and data integrity and to protect the system. They also feel they are not in a time critical environment. Manufacturers, on the other hand, focus on safety, they want to protect the system and they must work in real time where there are no disruptions.
“IT’s role is to maintain the business. If they forget that then they become an obstacle to the business,” Pederson said.
IT is more involved with the business side, Pederson said, and engineering remains focused on the automation side. “What has to happen is to have an automation IT side to bring both sides together,”
The schism that exists between the IT side and engineers is real, but it is not insurmountable, said Eric Cosman with Dow Chemical.
“If you get the relationship right, the rest is easier,” he said. “It’s all about relationships.”
The issue of engineers working with IT is not a new concept.
“We have been talking about this for a decade, but we have not had the sense of urgency to get it all together,” Cosman said. “Some progress has been made, but there is no real sense of urgency.”
“Operational excellence is the objective and excellence comes from playing to your strengths and working with partners,” Cosman said. “Real partners don’t keep score.”