Wonderware: We need to empower front line workers

Everyone talks about empowering workers, and that is all fine and good, but do they really know how to allow for real time decision making?
“We are all part of a value chain,” said Sudipta Bhattacharya, president of Wonderware during this morning’s keynote address at WonderWorld Conference in Las Vegas. Talking about the financial value chain, Bhattacharya discussed the problems with the current banking crisis.
“There were people on the front line warning this was going to happen, but they were not empowered to do something about it.”
He then added this kind of thing should not happen in the U.S. manufacturing sector.
“United States manufacturing has done a tremendous job of competing globally. The challenge is still there. We need to do more as we are asked to do more.”
One of the ways Bhattacharya said manufacturers can remain out front is empower workers on the front line. “We need to bring intelligence closer to the execution level.”
Bringing decision making to the front line is one new approach, but Bhattacharya also said manufacturers have to rethink the ways they innovate.
“Most of the seeds of innovation will come from outside the company. We need to have a way to manage the flow of ideas. We need to realize the multiform decentralized interdependent collaboration community is the way of the future,” he said.
He talked about Wonderware’s ecosystem, which consists of partners, systems integrators, vendors, suppliers and customers. As an example he talked about the Microsoft platform. “They are well known, but what makes them successful is their ecosystem,” he said. They work with and learn from everyone.
Wonderware continues to learn from users as Frank Iger, MES group manager for Nestle talked about his company’s continuing MES applications.
“We needed to increase the visibility in our manufacturing environment,” he said. “We needed to get the right information to the right people at the right time.”
The technical objectives he looks for in a system are:
• Is it based on reusable code
• Flexible
• Repeatable
• Easy to sustain
• Scalable
• Modular
• Reliable
• Redundant
• Web client interoperable
When Nestle decides to install a MES system corporate wide, they are looking at 480 factories world wide so they want to standardized as many processes as possible to retain as much information as possible.
Danny Williams, of BP business information, has a similar problem because his company saw Baby Boomers beginning to walk out the door and take their knowledge with them. So, they need to capture as much information as possible. That is why he worked to install a mobile computing solution in three plants.
As they were about to install the system, he found the best way to have everyone work together and it all comes down to the front line.
“If you don’t have operators and users buying into the plan, it will fail,” he said. “It needs to be operator and user driven. They don’t like to be told what to do. Engineers can’t drive the plan.”
Another aspect to managing a project is to get leadership and a consistent message from management.
“These projects can’t move forward without the proper leadership,” Williams said. “Leadership needs to maintain the momentum and continue the support.”