Information will make you king

It’s all about information. It is about creating it, getting it, understanding it, giving it, using it, and then learning from it.
“The world is changing and our society and economy are being shaped by a new era called globality,” said Matt Bauer, chairman of MESA during this morning’s opening keynote address at the 2008 Plant-to-enterprise conference in Orlando, Fla. “Globality is defined as the totally interconnected marketplace; one that is not hampered by time, political or geographic boundaries. The same technological progress that makes globality possible is driving a revolution in manufacturing.”
While that seems like another way of saying we are living in a global world, it does, but it has a different spin that manufacturers should listen to.
“Manufacturers have a new strategic imperative,” Bauer said. “They must do more and go faster if they are going to survive and thrive in tomorrow’s world. It is no longer about productivity and agility. They must innovate. Innovation is all about bringing together new ideas, new concepts and capabilities in unique ways. It’s about manipulating the established to create something new.”
Saying companies need to be innovative can sound like a tired cliché, but in fact the point has to be hammered home time after time.
“Determining when and where to innovate is still pretty hard,” Bauer said. “Our perception of what is possible is biased. It is biased by a predisposition by something called linear thinking. Linear thinking is sequential; it is one step at a time, it is a predictable series of logical conclusions. No big changes. It is really about basing your idea of tomorrow only on the information you have today.”
From a positive viewpoint, the way to get ahead is to shove aside that way of thinking and force the organization to move forward.
“We must stop thinking of innovation in terms of today,” Bauer said. “We cannot allow ourselves to be limited by the perception of what is possible. Just because we don’t know how to do something today, it doesn’t mean we won’t tomorrow.”
While a linear thinker may have problems learning to think that way, if that model does not change, it could mean a huge disaster for a company.
“Technology was the backbone of the industrial revolution,” Bauer said. It gave us speed to market through automation. It also fostered a silo’d approach to business process and organizations that are contrary to the demands of globality today. The next revolution in manufacturing will be built on information. Where manufacturing enterprises create value to a network of relationships and where response time becomes a strategic advantage. We need to operate in a totally interconnected marketplace using a unified communications approach.”
By using that approach, enterprises will be able to respond it real time.
“Information created a new foundation for manufacturing enterprises,” Bauer said. “Information readily available from any source in real time and in context can connect the dots and supercharge our innovation capabilities.
Dr. Peter Williams, chief technology officer for Big Green Innovations at IBM, agrees.
People are surprised to hear IBM is involved in the water industry, Williams said. The funny thing is, they found the main issues in the water industry had absolutely nothing to do with water.
“If you look at problems in the water sector, it is based on information,” Williams said. “We bring information management to water management.”
It’s all about information. It is about creating it, getting it, understanding it, giving it, using it, and then learning from it.