As we make final preparations for the Emerson Exchange Americas conference in Dallas next week, I wanted to highlight article by Emerson’s Jeff Dymond.
The Control Engineering article, The role of the new integrated business operator in an iOps environment, highlights:
A new type of operator that understands the needs of the business, when placed in the right kind of operational environment, can do much for driving profitability and larger enterprise objectives.
Jeff describes the opportunity technology opens:
Today’s technology allows operations personnel to control the process from 50 ft. or 500 mi. away, allowing businesses to put control rooms, centralized maintenance, operations, and production engineering in more appealing locations where companies can attract the most talented people. Developments in control technologies and field devices, along with robust networks, enable remote process monitoring and control. This new operations, maintenance, production, and collaboration center is now commonly called the Integrated Operations center, or IOps, and the role of the operator working in an IOps center is changing just as rapidly and significantly as the location.
He explains the five attributes common to iOps centers:
- Remote operations and remote monitoring
- Integrated centralized maintenance
- Collaboration
- Production planning and optimization
- Business operations
The new operators, Integrated Business Operators (IBOs), will use:
KPIs (key performance indicators) and analytics applications are major factors in measuring and providing feedback to an IBO. Applications available to him or her such as production risk analysis and production risk mitigation give insight into what action is the most profitable to the business.
Other applications used by IBOs include knowledge management federated search capabilities, business event monitoring, electronic logbooks, asset management, event-based electronic workflows, and certification-based training. Jeff provides insights into the other four attributes to help move the operator role to a business-based focused role.
Jeff concludes:
With the business’s need to squeeze more profit out of its processes, it’s no wonder that the operator’s role is becoming much different from those who went before. In today’s IOps center, operators will work differently—from integrated workflow solutions to supporting technologies such as mobility—all enabling financial responsibility. This is the new integrated business operator.
If you’ll be joining us at the Emerson Exchange conference next week, make sure to visit the iOps Center at the Technology Exhibits. If not, peek in our “Live” page, who’s URL I’ll announce early Monday morning.
