The 21st Century “Engineer”
By Joe Morray
Through articles and features produced regularly in this Insight magazine, we have chronicled and seen remarkable advances in the technologies available to the engineer of the 21st century. The ability to create and manage information is remarkable, and clearly we have the tools to manage information at the enterprise scale. Most companies, however, have documented continuing challenges in achieving the mythical benefits that we have all quoted and expected. The reason for this is the irrefutable tie to the way work gets done (work processes) for using these new technologies. We continue to believe that technology unto itself will yield major benefits. Experience has shown, over and over, that technology is the enabler. The work processes are what are being enabled. We need to focus as much on work processes, and the adoption of these by our organizations, as the implementation of the technologies.
The Lean Enterprise Institute reports that the average worker spends 15% of his/her time daily doing value-added work. The inevitable question arises “What happens with the other 85%? As an exercise, add up the time you spend daily in the following activities:
- waiting or trying to reach someone
- searching for information
- making corrections to your own work or the work of others
- producing product that is too early to provide benefit or is too late to meet customer needs
- performing unnecessary movement, copying, filing or deleting of information
Do you find these numbers alarming? The only way to change this figure is to create a new working paradigm. Focusing every activity around understanding and mapping how information flows is key to this paradigm. We need to recognize that work processes developed outside of this paradigm run the risk of adding work that provides no value to the final product and often take resources away from value-added work. Yet we see that as a whole, the industry is not ready to trust automated solutions or reused data because it puts too much trust in tools and the work of others. Consequently, our productivity will continue to be limited by our faith in technology and teamwork.
To ascend to the next generation of productivity, we must change the value-to-work ratio. We need to reduce the hours associated with creating information and increase the hours associated with “optimizing” information by using value improvement practices (VIPs). VIPs are exercises to 1) ensure that the “rules” or parameters are clearly and properly set for appropriate decision-making and 2) challenge the selected set of rules for sequence, responsibilities, and results of our established work processes. In the new information management driven organization, much of an individual’s time will be spent setting up and modifying a complex set of rules which software programs will then use to create the information needed to develop and execute capital projects. Consequently, work processes will focus on the types of information that must be developed, the roles and responsibilities of the parties developing it, and the methods that companies will use to keep the information accurate and current. Workers will essentially become consultants and reviewers responsible for gathering and applying the vast amount of experience in their company and the industry.
What does all this mean to each of our companies? First, as we evaluate the implementation of a new system, consider how the work processes can be changed and improved. Given that the information-enablement will be significantly different, it should be surprising to everyone if there ISN’T a substantial change to the work processes. Secondly, the roles that each of us will play needs to be assessed against the new processes and tools available. In theory, each individual should be able to handle a broader spectrum of activities because of the expertise available through our re-use of information. Lastly, these are not trivial issues, and the direct focus and resourcing of organizational change initiatives is fundamental to success . . . . And with that, move forward. Welcome to the 21st century!
Joe Morray is president of Trinity Technologies Corp., a process industries consulting firm that helps owner/operators and EPC firms succeed in the use of information systems. The company specializes in driving companies to align work processes, technology, and organizational change requirements for the plant environment.
