Webinar on Design Sprints

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On 13 December 3pm CET, Milan Guenther will give a free webinar on Design Sprints and empowering your intrapreneurs for rapid innovation.

milanThe role of a change agent in an enterprise is no easy one. Even with the right entrepreneurial spirits in your teams, politics, silos, established cultural traits and operational challenges get in the way. This has led many enterprises to try a different way. Diving into intrapreneurship programs employing lean and agile approaches, organizations are attempting to catch up with the startup world.

The ideas of working in rapid iterative sprints and avoiding waste have proven vital to overcome the natural inertia of organizations. The Design Sprint was originally developed at Google Ventures with Silicon Valley pioneers. It is a rapid innovation workshop format that aims to tackle problems for teams of any size, validating the challenge and potential solutions before investing into their realization.

Milan Guenther

In this webinar, Milan will introduce Enterprise Design Sprints, a variant of the original tool developed working with the likes of Google, SAP and Toyota. It is designed specifically to get innovation initiatives up to speed, mapping complexity rather than ignoring it, and triggering transformation dynamics. Find out more about the Enterprise Design Sprint methodology and download the free Sprint Canvas here.

Register for the webinar now!

Milan Guenther is managing partner at eda.c, a strategic design consultancy, and Google certified Design Sprint Master. He is the author of INTERSECTION, a book introducing the enterprise design approach for holistic design in complex enterprises, and organising the INTERSECTION conference series about strategic enterprise design. Milan works with organisations like SAP, Boeing, Toyota and the UN, as well as smaller organisations and start-up companies. He has been a designer and architect for over 12 years. Before co-founding eda.c, he worked as a freelance UX strategist and launched a social software startup.

Experience Mapping – Customer Obsession for IT and Digital Professionals

Watch the recording of webinar, 2 December 2016

Customer Journey maps are a powerful tool to capture opportunities and pain points customers are experiencing, providing a basis for customer-centric transformation. But how to connect them to the reality of a complex, intertwined enterprise that needs to do things differently in order to deliver on these insights?

Too often, the links to the current architecture and organization are unclear, making it difficult to implement such initiatives. Enterprise Architecture teams find themselves stuck in a logic of operations far away from the customer, while those close to the customer struggle to make an impact on the way the enterprise actually works.

In this webinar, Katharina and Milan will share an approach to mapping the Customer Experience for prioritizing topics and challenges, looking at a practical Service Design scenario from the healthcare industry. Using the QualiWare modelling environment, they will look at what to capture, how to make this a part of an integrated Business Architecture model, and how to guide transformation through shared knowledge informing rapid Design Sprints.

Bios

katharinaKatharina Weber is a UX strategist and service designer from Berlin. She is working freelance and is a fellow with eda.c. Her main agenda is to help creating meaningful user experiences for complex applications and services. In her recent projects she explores the intersections between design and business in disciplines such as design management, organizational design and business modeling. Thereby working towards holistic solutions that fit both the business strategy and the user needs. Katharina is also regularly working as a Google Expert Mentor, teaching hands-on methodology for Product Strategy and User Experience design to young entrepreneurs of the start up scene.

milanMilan Guether is managing partner at eda.c, a strategic design consultancy with offices in Paris and Düsseldorf. He is the author of INTERSECTION, a book introducing the enterprise design approach for holistic design in complex enterprises, and co-organising the INTERSECTION conference series about strategic enterprise design. Milan works with organisations like Google, SAP, Boeing, Toyota and the UN, as well as smaller organisations and start-up companies. He has been a designer and architect for over 12 years. Before co-founding eda.c, he worked as a freelance UX strategist and launched a social software startup. Milan co-leads the Paris chapter of the Interaction Design Association and teaches Design Management at the Paris College of Art.

Sign up here.

Reinventing IT

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18 Nov webinar with Milan Guenther

In this first webinar of a series on Enterprise Design practice, Milan will show how to reposition architecture, analysis and design work to reclaim the driver’s seat in digital transformation. The webinar will cover these themes:

  • Working with the QualiWare modelling environment, we will cover
  • What the new digital customer means for enterprise modelling
  • Using a holistic approach to define challenges, scope and frame initiatives
  • Running projects in an agile and lean fashion using Design Sprints
  • Systemic and proactive modelling to drive the right conversations

As architects, analysts and IT professionals, we are challenged by our peers, clients and users: well beyond “keeping the lights on”, we need to lead the way into the digital future of the enterprise. With new relationships to empowered customers and users, trust in organizations in decline, and startup competition disrupting entire industries, this role has never been more important. Yet our methods and tools keep us busy documenting today’s complexity, making us seen like preventers rather than agents of change. We see people’s eyes glaze over at our complicated models, tired of the difficulties they entail. To reposition ourselves as the architects and designers of the enterprise, our focus has to shift from modelling the inner workings to covering our ecosystem, from mapping today’s complexity to informing future strategic scenarios, from operations and technology to customer value creation, and from busy diagrams to capturing what matters to our audience.

Milan Guenther

Register for this free webinar!

Milan Guenther is a Managing Partner at eda.c, a strategic design consultancy with offices in Paris and Düsseldorf. He is the author of INTERSECTION, a book introducing the Enterprise Design approach for holistic design in complex enterprises. Milan works with Google, SAP, Boeing, Toyota and the UN, as well as smaller organisations and start-up companies. 

Further reading: Milan’s blog post on Reinventing IT

The Webinar Series

  • Nov 18 – Reinventing IT: How Strategic Enterprise Design Leads Digital Transformation
  • Dec 2 – Experience Mapping: Customer Obsession for IT and Digital professionals
  • Dec 13 – Enterprise Design Sprints: Empowering your Intrapreneurs for Rapid Innovation
  • Jan 13 – Scaling Enterprise Design: a Management Framework for Agile Environments

ArchiMate 3.0 Webinar

Click here to watch the recording.

Are you using Archimate 3.0 Specification as your modelling standard? Do your current tools enable you to work with this and other standards as easily as you would like?

If not, you may be interested to find an easy-to-use, repository-based tool to fully support your requirements. You can manage all your architecture needs, and:

  • Reduce errors in managing the complexity of ArchiMate 3.0
  • Reduce amount of documentation required through re-using your objects and models
  • Save time and reduce duplication of work
  • Add properties to your ArchiMate symbols
  • Speed up work by using non graphical relations

QualiWare Enterprise Architecture Suite fully supports the new Archimate 3.0 Specification. This includes:

  • Support for all constructs, relationships, and controls for ArchiMate 3.0
  • Ability to link your Archimate models to models for other standards
  • Support for all new 3.0 viewpoints
  • Drag and drop any of the 56 symbols into your diagrams

Join our Archimate 3.0 webinar

Monday the 26th September at 4pm CET (3pm UK)

Through this webinar you’ll get a brief Introduction to QualiWare and ArchiMate. We will look at what’s new in ArchiMate3.0. How to draw ArchiMate3.0 diagrams in QualiWare and how you can link ArchiMate with other diagrams and standards.

Join us and learn about the new features in Archimate3.0 and QualiWare

Reimagining Management

23 August 2016

Roger Tregear’s 1-day seminar in Farum

The only way any organisation is able to create, accumulate, and deliver value to its customers is via collaboration across the organisation. There is no other way. Can any box on your organisation chart, by itself, deliver value outside your organisation? No, it can’t. This is the meaningful message of process-based management.

Roger Tregear
Leonardo Consulting


7Enablers

Toolkit for transformation

This seminar delivers a practical and pragmatic metamodel for business transformation. The 7Enablers is a systematic approach to the process of management. It reasserts the primacy of value creation, accumulation, and delivery. Organisations must take a step back and reimagine their operations as value creation and delivery flows. 7Enablers represents a breakthrough in process-based management theory and its practical implementation and operation.

Why should I attend?

Management Breakthrough Content
Learn about the 7Enablers approach to management excellence and how it can make a significant difference in your organization.

Make Process-Based Management Real
Understand how to realise the benefits of process-based management using pragmatic and proven approaches.

Focus On Value Creation, Accumulation, & Delivery
Learn how to create a management approach that persistently focuses the organisation, its people, and their teams on the delivery of value to customers and other stakeholders. 

Efficiency & Effectiveness Delivered
Learn why the inevitable directive to ‘do more with less’ is not an impossible demand for an organisation doing effective process-based management.

World Class Education Outcomes
Your trainer, Roger Tregear, brings international thought leadership combined with the practical insights to allow you to make process-based management work in your organisation.

Local Network Connections
This seminar connects you with other analysts and managers with an interest in developing better process management practices using contemporary, proven approaches.

Who should attend?

The seminar is for anyone involved in the management and improvement of organisational performance or the analysis and design of business systems, especially those who have an interest in process-based management. Executives, managers, business analysts, process practitioners, supply chain managers, and anyone involved in the management and improvement of organisational performance, will gain valuable and practical insights from this seminar.

What will I learn in the seminar?

In a day packed with pragmatic wisdom and practical case study examples, you will learn:

  • How organisational strategy is executed via business processes
  • Why only cross-functional processes can deliver value (products & services) to customers
  • Why process-based management allows managers to focus on the things that really matter
  • How the process view provides an effective framework for business requirements analysis
  • How to build awareness of performance and quality in every person across the organisation
  • How the 7Enablers defines, measures, improves, and maintains organisation performance
  • Why continuous improvement needs both performance-driven and idea-driven pathways
  • How the Virtuous Circles sustain effective process-based management

The 7Enablers is a systemic framework for sustained transformative management, replacing ‘random acts of management’ with commitment to deliberate operational excellence.The 7Enablers is a systemic framework for sustained transformative management, replacing ‘random acts of management’ with commitment to deliberate operational excellence.

When and where?

23 August 2016 at QualiWare HQ at Ryttermarken 15 in Farum.

Participation

The course fee is 5000 DKK plus VAT (if applicable). The fee includes seminar participation, breakfast and lunch, course material, and an optional follow-up visit by a QualiWare BPM expert.

Register here.

Roger Tregear is a Consulting Director with Leonardo Consulting. He delivers BPM education and consulting assignments worldwide. Based in Canberra (Australia), Roger spends his working life talking, consulting, thinking and writing about the analysis, improvement, innovation and management of business processes.

Reference Architectures for Industry 4.0

We stand on the brink of a technological revolution that will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another. In its scale, scope, and complexity, the transformation will be unlike anything humankind has experienced before.

Klaus Schwab
Founder and Executive Chairman
World Economic Forum

 

On our study trip to Automation Valley, we learned about Industry 4.0 and the digitalization of German manufacturing. On the way back to Denmark, one of the other participants said, “yep, the Germans set the standard”. This is indeed the case, even in a very literal sense: They’re making Industry 4.0 a German DIN Standard, and are aiming for international standardization.

Introducing RAMI 4.0

The German Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association, and its partners, have developed the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 (RAMI 4.0). Today supported by the Plattform Industrie 4.0 network, RAMI 4.0 is held as a key standard for Industry 4.0.

RAMI 4.0_neue Farben_849x566RAMI 4.0 consists of

a three-dimensional coordinate system that describes all crucial aspects of Industrie 4.0. In this way, complex interrelations can be broken down into smaller and simpler clusters.

The coordinate system is further described as follows:

The “Hierarchy Levels” axis:

Indicated on the right horizontal axis are hierarchy levels from IEC 62264, the international standards series for enterprise IT and control systems. These hierarchy levels represent the different functionalities within factories or facilities. In order to represent the Industrie 4.0 environment, these functionalities have been expanded to include workpieces, labelled “Product”, and the connection to the Internet of Things and Services, labelled “Connected World”.

The “Life Cycle & Value Stream” axis:

The left horizontal axis represents the life cycle of facilities and products, based on IEC 62890 for life-cycle management. Furthermore, a distinction is made between “types” and “instances”. A “type” becomes an “instance” when design and prototyping have been completed and the actual product is being manufactured.

The “Layers” axis:

The six layers on the vertical axis serve to describe the decomposition of a machine into its properties structured layer by layer, i.e. the virtual mapping of a machine. Such representations originate from information and communication technology, where properties of complex systems are commonly broken down into layers.

Together, the axes form a model that can be used as follows:

Within these three axes, all crucial aspects of Industrie 4.0 can be mapped, allowing objects such as machines to be classified according to the model. Highly flexible Industrie 4.0 concepts can thus be described and implemented using RAMI 4.0. The reference architectural model allows for step-by-step migration from the present into the world of Industrie 4.0.

In essense,

…RAMI 4.0 provides a common understanding for standards and use cases….RAMI 4.0 can be regarded as a kind of 3D map of Industrie 4.0 solutions: it provides an orientation for plotting the requirements of sectors together with national and international standards in order to define and further develop Industrie 4.0. Overlapping standards and gaps can thus be identified and resolved.

RAMI 4.0 is referencing three standards:

  • IEC 62890 – Life-cycle management for systems and products used in industrial-process measurement, control and automation. Note: Under development since 2013 and not available to the public until its release, scheduled for September 2016.
  • IEC 62264 – Enterprise-control system integration.
  • IEC 61512 – Batch control.

The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) white paper on Factory of the Future explains further that when establishing interoperability in manufacturing environments, different dimensions of integration have to be considered:

  • Vertical integration, i.e. along the automation pyramid as defined by IEC 62264/IEC 61512. This includes factory-internal integration from sensors and actuators within machines up to ERP systems.
  • Horizontal integration, i.e. along the value chain and throughout production networks. This includes the integration of production networks on the business level as achieved by EDI-based supply chain integration, but might include more in the future, when close-to-real-time and product- or process-specific information is exchanged to increase the level of detail and quality in distributed manufacturing optimization.
  • Integration towards engineering and product/production life cycle applications (e.g. IEC 62890) in order to enable low-effort knowledge sharing and synchronization between product and service development and manufacturing environments.

Standardizing RAMI 4.0

RAMI4.0 has now been put forward for standardization in Germany as DIN SPEC 91345 – Referenzarchitekturmodell Industrie 4.0.  It often takes years for a DIN SPEC to become an official DIN Standard, but now the process has begun, and since Industry 4.0 seems to be a high priority area for DIN, they may decide to fast-track this standard.

So far, the standard is available in German language only, but should be available in English too soon. For now, the most comprehensive publications in English about RAMI 4.0 seem to be the 2016 status report and the 2015 status report.

IEC has put Industry 4.0, including RAMI, high on their agenda. In their call for their general assembly later this year, IEC outlines its future plans and strategic goals for Industry 4.0 reference models and architectures:

Developing a description of the reference models in dedicated standards. As with core models, reference models are also used in a wide variety of model solutions.

Defining reference models separately as independent standards for the purposes of simplification and avoidance of unintentional deviations, and for better understanding.

Implementing a nearly finished specification (DIN SPEC 91345 – publication planned Q2 2016) as Public Available Specification – PAS within IEC, starting with the new work item procedure in the relevant Technical Committee of the IEC.

The relevant IEC committee would probably be TC65 who also owns the three IEC standards included in DIN SPEC 91345, but there are likely many other TCs in IEC who eventually become involved with Industry 4.0. The same will many other standardization organizations and initiatives. The Technical Management Board (TMB) of the International Standard Organization (ISO) has set up a Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) on Industry 4.0/Smart Manufacturing. This SAG should cooperate closely with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and is supposed to report back by September 2016. Most of this work takes place behind closed doors, and the SAGs homepage is not very informative.

Analyzing RAMI 4.0’s roots

assets
Categories of technical assets.

The “Life Cycle & Value Stream” axis is based on an unpublished standard, and therefore difficult to assess. The 2016 status report shed some light on this, and states that:

It was one of the main design decisions of the RAMI4.0 architecture to model type descriptions as individual assets (with own life cycles) which are independent from specific products. To highlight this fact, the assets are divided along the x-axis into “types” (type descriptions) and “instances” (specific products).

And also, that,

This is just a very rough classification but it helps to separate the development and life-cycle management of product types (product families) from the production and lifecycle management of the individual products.

The distinction between type and instance is classic in software engineering and information modeling. RAMI 4.0 maps the asset categories to the life-cycle dimension and the value stream.

Architecturally, this is an interesting approach. But someone really needs to work on the visualization and explanation of the dimension. The status report hints that the IEC 62890 standard will explain it all.

The “Hierarchy Levels” (with IEC62264) dimension is based on the classic ISA-95 which dates back to the 1990s (but is still maintained).

PERA_Decision-making_and_control_hierarchy
Purdue Reference Model (Wikipedia)

ISA notes that the purpose of ISA-95 is:

To create a standard that will define the interface between control functions and other enterprise functions based upon the Purdue Reference Model for CIM (hierarchical form) as published by ISA. The interface initially considered is the interface between levels 3 and 4 of that model. Additional interfaces will be considered, as appropriate. The goal is to reduce the risk, cost, and errors associated with implementing these interfaces. The standard must define information exchange that is robust, safe, and cost effective. The exchange mechanism must preserve the integrity of each system’s information and span of control.

The Purdue Reference Model for CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) from 1989, published as ISA-95, became the de facto organizing logic for manufacturing information systems and defined that the 0-4 levels have core information systems: ERP at level 4, MES at level 3, and SCADA at level 2.

i40enhancementThe hierarchy in RAMI 4.0 is divided into two parts: products (and users) and equipment (field devices, control devices, stations, work units, enterprises and connected world).

The status report seems to acknowledge that RAMI 4.0 may not have hit the nail:

All in all, the ordering schema along the y-axis is just a presentation help for fostering an intuitive understanding of the architecture. In case the terms or aggregation steps do not fit into the respective domains, they can easily be readjusted.

The “Layers” axis

serve to describe the decomposition of a machine into its properties structured layer by layer, i.e. the virtual mapping of a machine. Such representations originate from information and communication technology, where properties of complex systems are commonly broken down into layers.

Layering is a classic theme in enterprise architecture. Although there are some critics, most current enterprise architecture frameworks use architectural layers (e.g., strategy, business, information, applications, infrastructure, and security in EA3).

“The nice thing about standards …”

“…is that you have so many to choose from,” Tanembaum‘s old “joke” about standardization, applies here: RAMI 4.0 is not the only standard for digital industry reference architecture.

The major other standard is the Industrial Internet Reference Architecture (IIRA) from the Industrial Internet Consortium, which is

IICthe open membership, international not-for-profit consortium that is setting the architectural framework and direction for the Industrial Internet. Founded by AT&T, Cisco, GE, IBM and Intel in March 2014, the consortium’s mission is to coordinate vast ecosystem initiatives to connect and integrate objects with people, processes and data using common architectures, interoperability and open standards.

IIC is established by the Object Management Group (OMG). Many architects use OMGs modeling standards, including the Unified Modeling Language (UML), Business Process Model and Notation (BPMN) and Model Driven Architecture (MDA).

IIRA is presented as follows:

This Reference Architecture is a statement of what the most important Industrial Internet architecture components are, how they fit together and how they influence each other. It reflects consensus on major architecture questions among participants from energy, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation and public sectors.

I will look closer at IIRA in a future blog post.

IIC and Plattform Industrie 4.0 in March 2016 announced that they will work together to align RAMI 4.0 and IIRA – Cooperation Among Two Key Leaders in the Industrial Internet – see press release and blog. They released some initial mappings:

iici4map

iira-rami

Industrial cultures and their “movements”

RAMI 4.0 and IIRA are the two major deliverables from the two “movements”, Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet. Representatives from these “movements” were brought together in a panel here the other day at the Hannover Messe, and a report, BAM! POW! Industrie 4.0 Meets the Industrial Internet!, notes that

In the end, the panel did not agree on whether there would be ultimately one platform or many. But they did agree that they share a common view on the need to gain an understanding of how things should function and making sure that they interact.

Kris Bledowski from the US-based Manufacturers Alliance for Productivity and Innovation compared the movements about a year ago:

comparsoni40iira
Comparison of Industrie 4.0 and the Industrial Internet Consortium. Source: MAPI Foundation

Bledowski sums it up:

  • Industrie 4.0 strives to optimize production while the IIC’s research targets returns to any asset
  • Industrie 4.0 works on standardization whereas the IIC works on enabling platforms that might set future standards
  • Industrie 4.0 is reactive to a fast pace of high-tech innovation; the IIC proactively pushes the frontier of any internet-enabled application

Generalizing the Reference Architectures

The Purdue Reference Model is a key element in PERA, the Purdue Enterprise Reference Architecture, the early 1990s reference model for enterprise architecture. PERA is an example of what was then called Reference Architectures of type II. Other such architectures were GRAI-GIM and CIMOSA.

Over the years, many other “industrial” reference architectures have been established. Many of these are sector-specific. For example, in the oil industry, POSC Caesar Association (PCA) and MIMOSA have established PCA-MIMOSA Reference Architecture Framework for Integrated Engineering and Operations in 2013. It describes

a reference architecture for defining, designing and classifying IT applications, systems and infrastructure in the upstream oil and gas industry, downstream petrochemical industry, and for engineering, procurement and construction projects.

geram-figure1
GERAM framework components

In 1994 then came the Generalised Enterprise Reference Architecture and Methodology (GERAM), which also comprises a framework and methodology. GERAM became part of ISO 15704 “Requirements for Generalised Enterprise Reference Architectures and Methodologies” in 2000.

Fast forward, and many frameworks and methodologies later, GERAMs authors did a recent review of the last 20 years with reference architectures, and observed,

We believe that the future of EA is in its ability to develop an interdisciplinary language and theory enabling a concerted and synergistic application of contributions of underlying disciplines (results from management science, systems, industrial, manufacturing and software engineering, IS, Artificial Intelligence, and so on).

GERAM is a valuable baseline meta-framework  – to discuss the above, to create new theories, schools of thoughts, integration of engineering practices and tools, explanations of how technologies can be part of EA, methodologies for EA implementation, and Partial and Particular models for re-use.

As discussed in a previous blog post, and explored in a Special Issue on Future Perspectives On Next Generation Enterprise Information Systems of the Computers in Industry journal, we need to renew our reference architectures and architectural practices:

No doubt that the next generation of enterprise information systems will continue emphasising the need for scalable, reliable, extensible, flexible, highly available and maintainable systems architectures providing ubiquitous, plug-and-play, secure, interoperable and networked solutions to realise smarter and collaborative systems, platforms and ICT infrastructures for all entities operating in a common business ecosystem.

The reference architectures we define and use must reflect our architectural visions. RAMI 4.0 and IIRA are two different visions. Which one will be best? As we architects always say, “it depends”.

A Trip to Automation Valley

automationvalleyQualiWare and 17 other member companies of Manufacturing Academy of Denmark (MADE) went on an Industrie 4.0 study trip to Automation Valley in North Bavaria last week. The trip was arranged by MADE together with the local chamber of commerce and industry and the Royal Danish Consulate General in München.

The Digital Factory

Siemens, one of Germany’s largest companies and the largest engineering company in Europe, has taken its own medicine  – digitalization and Totally Integrated Automation (TIA) – and has built a digital factory in Amberg in Bavaria.

The facility is a prime example of advanced product automation and has received numerous awards. The Amberg factory already combines the real and virtual worlds: Products communicate with machines, and all production processes are optimally integrated and controlled via IT. Siemens
The Siemens Amberg digital factory. Guests are strictly forbidden to take photos. This is a press photo from Siemens.
Siemens says:

The facility is a prime example of advanced product automation and has received numerous awards. The Amberg factory already combines the real and virtual worlds: Products communicate with machines, and all production processes are optimally integrated and controlled via IT.

The factory is essentially a fully operational demonstrator for many of Siemens’ own products and brands. Since the factory actually produces critically-important equipment for digital factories, one could call it a factory factory, and one may start wondering whether we visited the real-world Cyberdyne (as known from the Terminator movies).

amberg-humanSiemens told us that they were quite content having reached a 75% level of automation in Armberg, and that it currently is neither feasible nor desirable to automate further in this kind of production.

The continued human intervention will not disappear with the digital factory, but roles and competencies will change dramatically. Shop-floor work merges with administrative and analytical work, and desktops with computers now invade the shop-floor alongside the robots, sensors and augmentation systems. How the different roles and responsibilities change will depend on many things, not least organisational culture and politics. When sensors and big data analytics become the new supervisors, middle management must find new work, or become extinct, for example.

3D Printing

After huge Siemens we next visited FIT AG, an additive design and manufacturing (3D printing) company with (I think) 200 employees. They introduce ADM and themselves like this:

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is a disruptive manufacturing technology for complex parts in plastics and metal such as Aluminum, Titanium, tool steel, stainless steel, and Inconel. Different to traditional abrasive or forming technologies, additive manufacturing builds three-dimensional objects layer by layer. Leaving the known limitations of conventional production techniques far behind, these objects can be of almost any shape or geometry. Additive manufacturing is used efficiently for single parts as well as mass production. In order to exploit the full potential of additive manufacturing, its chances as well as specific challenges regarding design and technical issues must be well-known. With 20 years’ experience in this field, the FIT Group is an expert not only for AM, but the world-leading specialist for Additive Design and Manufacturing.

Here are some examples of their prints:


LM-Werkzeugdop

fabatfitadmq


FIT uses leading-edge AM technologies and works closely with 3D printer vendors to become able to deliver ever more advanced products on ever more markets. FIT is growing fast, and we visited their new printing facility in Lupburg, which is already (partially) open for business, as Europe’s first commercial high volume additive manufacturing facility.

Additive Design and Manufacturing is an enabler of radical innovation, and FIT’s value proposition is basically that you can now produce and manufacture some designs that were previously if not impossible then impractical to produce. AM itself is today far from competitive to standardized mass-production, but is beginning to be interesting for mass-customization and complex product in higher volumes. But the real strength today is in rapid prototyping and design iterations for product innovations. For an example, see FIT’s case video about a race car cylinder.

Organizationally, ADM is to industrial designers/product engineers and production engineers/shop-floor what devops is to service designers/IT developers and IT service managers/IT operations. It is going to be interesting to see how this will work in an industrial setting, which has traditionally had very .

Green Factory

greenfacThe last visit was to the Institute for Factory Automation and Production Systems (FAPS) at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) which is a research leader in cleantech. FAPS is involved with Green Factory Bavaria:

The Green Factory in Bavaria combines the research expertise of all relevant fields within energy-efficient production disciplines, such as mechanical engineering, production engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, chemical engineering, materials science, and economics. These research fields consider all significant transformations of energy to movement, to lighting, to information processing. This even extends to for manufacturing processes as well as heating, cooling and air conditioning control, which are dedicated for the usage of energy in production, logistics and administration. With a clear focus on energy efficiency in production, the interdisciplinary collaboration of the Green Factory Bavaria is integrated into an internationally viable research network.

The FAPS team demonstrated a range of research results which, for example, use much less electricity than current solutions. Or less material. It should go without saying that such research is incredibly important at many levels – from “saving the planet” over “viable enterprise” to “profitable growth/competitive advantage”. A group of experts discussed the “digital green agenda” in Greening IT. As a registered user, you can download the book here.

Augmented Reality

augmensysOne of the days in Nürnberg was a networking day for Danish and German companies. Or DACH companies; one company I found particularly interesting is an Austrian company, Augmensys, that provides and develops Augmented Reality software for professional use in industrial environments.

Established in 2011, Augmensys is a pioneer for efficient data management without frictional losses throughout the process industry. Their UBIK platform is an innovative mobile data management software with Augmented Reality support, made solely for use in enterprise scenarios.

Augmensys is currently focusing on tablets, but also works with helmets and smart-gadgets of various kinds. The sometimes rather special settings for the relevant usage scenarios – for example underground without GPS, wifi, etc – is a key challenge. Also, the human-device interaction is a challenge, since it’s not always practical to use, say, a tablet.

In some industrial (and other) settings, augmentation technologies are embedded in the environment and interact with machines, robots, sensors and other “things” – and people. For example, a Danish meat-processing facility uses laser projection for guiding the meat-cutters.

Enabling Industry 4.0

So, the Germans call all of the above Industrie 4.0:

When components communicate with the production equipment by themselves, or order a repair to be undertaken when needed – when people, machines and industrial processes are intelligently networked, that is “Industrie 4.0”.

Industrie 4.0 is a central element in the German government’s Digital Agenda program. The German manufacturing industry is, as our study trip showed, already fully engaged in realizing Industry 4.0.

The digital agenda is a global agenda, and Germany’s Industrie 4.0 is of course also a strong national agenda for German competitiveness in the global markets. With “players” such as Siemens and SAP, Industry 4.0 could be Germany’s export good #1.

There is however also a risk at stake: Maybe Industry 4.0 works better outside Germany? Or whichever variants other countries call their digitalization efforts.

The Danish delegation returned home with a lot of inspiration – both from the Germans but also from each other – and will continue working together to enable the continued digitalization of the Danish manufacturing industry. Which will probably continue to use Siemens and SAP as major suppliers for their digital platform.

 

 

Laying the Foundation for Digital Business Transformation

The market is moving quickly, and we are constantly being tasked with improving on performance to drive better results and justify our positions.  To do this we need to bring in digital technologies to facilitate every aspect of the business, and gather data for analysing performance and finding areas to improve.  This goes for everything in your business eco-system: supply chain, customer journeys, back-office support functions, processes, IT estate, and all cross-functional activities.  Your competitors are working on this, to varying degrees of success, and you also need to.

With so many projects to work on, and potential investments to make, how do we make sure our digital transformation is successful?  And provides the quick results that shareholders and stakeholders demand?

Here’s three steps you can do to lay the foundations for successful digital transformation.

Understand your current landscape and digital technologies

Before bringing in new digital tech, you need to know what you have already, where the gaps are, and what options are available.  Each functions’ digital requirements will be evolving constantly, and some can be met with the existing set up.  Accurately document your enterprise architecture starting with the IT and process landscape and ensure there is alignment with organisational goals.  This will provide visibility on the areas for improvement and the impact of bringing in new digital technologies, and allow you to plan for training programs and transformation activities.

Identify key areas for digital transformation

Digital solutions should support the exchange of information between all people and “things” in the business eco-system.  All productive processes should therefore be digitally supported, be an organisational part of the enterprise regardless of geographic location, and the ability to exchange information in execution of a process should be available at all times and in all places.  Customer journey maps, capability models, and gap analyses developed as part of your enterprise architecture will enable you to identify key areas for digital transformation.

For example, the new “Digital Hospital” in Denmark has used its enterprise architecture to understand how all people and “things” should link up.  The digital hospital has visualised the elements required to support core services such as treatment of patients, and non-clinical logistics,and mapped the knowledge that needs to be transferred at each step.  The correct digital technologies to support the knowledge transfer can then be identified and introduced.  In this case, it includes the introduction of robots in storage areas to ensure that delivery of correct materials is never more than 20 metres from physicians, and mobile registration for log books.

Create a Collaboration Platform

Digital transformation requires buy-in and cooperation from people spread across all areas of the business.  The main reason for failure in transformation projects is lack of commitment from stakeholders. Everyone needs to understand the impact of digital transformation, and how to ensure it aligns with overall goal of the organisation, reasons for change, and what they need to do to contribute.  A simple web-platform that provides this information in an easy to consume format, with alerts for outstanding tasks can ensure that people stay on top of transformation tasks and remain committed to the end result: a modern digitally enabled enterprise.

These steps will allow you to optimise the use of current resources, mitigate risks in digitalisation, and ensure cross-functional teams collaborate on your digital transformation.

Architecting the Digital Hospital

More than 10 billion Euros will be spent on 16 new hospital construction projects in Denmark. One of the larger projects, dubbed a “super-hospital,” is in Odense, where the budget is 1.3 billion Euros. The New Odense University Hospital (Nyt OUH) will be approximately 250.000 m2 and is scheduled to be ready in 2022. It will become the largest hospital in Denmark that is built from scratch.

Budget
1.3 €billion

Floor area
250.000 m2

New OUH is a green-field mega-project which will replace the existing university hospital (OUH). So on one hand, it is a rare opportunity to architect a digital enterprise “ground-up”, regardless of the existing built-environment, but on the other hand, it is also a significant transition challenge for the existing enterprise.

The overall vision for New OUH is:

A university hospital is a highly technological and knowledge intensive enterprise that depends on knowledge being shared and used optimally in the primary production – treatment of patients and research. Knowledge in the hospital must flow freely inside the networks and between the relevant operators and must be available at any time and in such a fashion that it can be utilized immediately.

New OUHs governing bodies have established an overall vision for the digital hospital:

The Digital Hospital is a composite term consisting of the word Hospital. This represents the core service – diagnosing and treatment of patients and thus the circuit of knowledge while the Digital is a supporting and developmental term to the core service. The Digital element in New OUH must be omnipresent and must ensure that New OUH can realize its vision and make full and optimal use of the knowledge circuit. In other words, the Digital hospital is a precondition for the knowledge circuit in New OUH.

Jonas Hedegaard Knudsen, CIO

Digital solutions at New OUH will be for all, to all, between all, everywhere – always.

For all

Digital solutions must support all users of the hospital and its functions. Concurrently, the digital solutions will help convert data into information to the benefit of the sharing of knowledge, treatment, care and research. The digital solutions must support exchange of information/communication as well between the different users, and deliver to such an extent that they support proper communication between the parties and in a fashion making it relevant for the information seeker. When the term “all” is used it refers to patients, next of kin, hospital employees, GPs, municipality and scientific researchers at the university.

To all

Digital solutions for all are regarded as any productive process at New OUH is digitally supported. Data, information and knowledge flow freely and automatically to all people as well as systems, thus supporting the hospital processes in the best possible way and at any time providing the employees with the necessary knowledge needed to perform their tasks. “To all” constitutes a movement from one operator to (“all”) another operator. This movement rep-resents knowledge shared transparently and automatically. Data, information and knowledge thus flow to and between all productive operators and processes at the hospital.

Between all

Digital solutions between all tie individuals, work processes and solutions together in a holistically orientated network2. In other words, we are talking about coherent sharing of information and knowledge between all operators in a network. “Between all” is thus regarding the coherence and integration of concepts. The digital elements is seen as coherence and integration on three levels: between individuals, between equipment, and between equipment and individuals. The digital hospital must contribute to information and knowledge being made available in such a way that it can be integrated and utilized between all operators and network in and around the hospital’s technical and productive processes.

Everywhere

Digital solutions “over all” mean that the solutions must be available and integrated for all, in and around the hospital, patients as well as external partners. This availability “everywhere” facilitates communication, sharing and creation of knowledge. Therefore “Everywhere” must not be viewed as a (narrow hospital based) concept but as including all partners (patients, scientific researchers, municipalities etc.) “Everywhere” covers, in other words, the geographical and organizational areas that participate in or around a specific productive process offered by the hospital to a patient or a group of patients. “Everywhere” thus facilitates both and organizational perspective, a process related perspective, and a geographical perspective. This means that digital solutions “everywhere” must be an organizational part of the entire hospi-tal, support all productive processes in such a way that these can be utilized in the best possible way regardless of geographical location.

Always

Digital solutions must always be present and support the user at any given time to be able to procure the requested information – regardless of place and time. This means that the digital solutions support availability of information for the user at the time the information is requested. This means that during an operation the surgeon can pull vital information that the researcher has unlimited access to quality data in his field. That data is available regardless if the user is present at the hospital, the university or outside.

New OUH has chosen QualiWare’s digital business design platform for the ongoing architecture and design work on the digital enterprise. QualiWare is already used at the existing OUH for asset management in several clinical areas.

The New OUH enterprise architecture team will over the next 6 years need to flesh out actionable digital business design, and realize the digital hospital vision. QualiWare Center of Excellence will support the EA team in these efforts.

In future blogs, we will offer more updates and elaborations on the digital hospital.

How IT Can Enable Oil & Energy Firms to Survive the Oil Price Slump

Many firms in the oil sector are struggling due to the steep drop in oil prices.  Across the sector there has been a reduction in investment, and in many cases downsizing.  Planning for the future in these times can be tough, and changes need to be made in order to survive.  However, some firms are not only working on surviving but also putting themselves in a strong position to capitalise on opportunities when oil prices eventually rise and stabilise.  Furthermore, these firms are also making big changes towards digitalisation, and modernising the way they do business in spite of the slump.

Oil & Energy firms, both upstream and downstream, are typically highly complex.  Equipment, assets, process, systems, applications, broad webs of suppliers and customers, and a large and varied workforce are integral to keeping everything running at a profit.  Regulatory requirements are not getting looser but tighter, this all adds the huge running costs which do not get lower as the oil price does.

However, there are opportunities to be exploited.  The big question is how?

Align Business & IT

Oil & Energy enterprises will typically have thousands of applications, and the associated infrastructure to run and host these systems.  Therefore you should start by creating a common enterprise model accurately showing how IT systems support business processes and identify the need for process information and data.  From there, you can define the key applications for development and maintenance, and importantly, identify redundant and overlapping applications to be phased out.  This allows the enterprise to focus investments in the right areas.  Through this process, we’ve seen oil & energy enterprises save millions of dollars annually in support & maintenance costs.  Furthermore, it will allow you to focus important resources on developing a modern, digital enterprise architecture.

Adapt to New Digital Technologies

The downturn has brought forth many new technologies designed to improve efficiency and reduce costs. And they have already started making an impact.  Your firm will be looking into or already implementing new automation technologies, exploiting big data, or bringing in customer focused technologies such as multichannel marketing platforms.  Capital projects will still be a large feature, and ensuring all these projects run on-time and on-budget is not simple.

In order to bring in these new technologies successfully, different stakeholders and cross-functional teams will need to see how the solution fits with the current organisation, the changes that need to be made, understand the impact of change to mitigate risks.  Take your enterprise model and publish this to the web so everyone can see it.  Ensure those involved in change can access all the information they need to facilitate the transformation, and provide a platform for all parties to collaborate.

Set up for Rapid Reaction to Market Change

If the oil market picks up in the next 12-18 months, you need to be in a position to react rapidly to changes.  A well-defined company architecture, aligned to corporate goals will allow the organisation to react quickly when the time comes. This should include each employee having access to all the information they need to do their job, get trained, and understand how they fit into the wider context.

With the slump in oil prices continuing and no concrete timeline for when it will improve, can you afford to sit tight and hope for the best?  Or is it time to visualise the changes you need to make, and work together to transform your business?

Take a look at how Statoil save millions of dollars in annual IT maintenance, support and development costs through aligning IT and business.  Also at GKN/Volvo Aero, the savings were in excess of $1.5million a year.