Does Digital Transformation Solve Unreliability?

One of my colleagues sent me a few questions to support around digital transformation and I thought it might be useful to post them for a wider read.

Q1) "Is Digital Transformation a panacea to all our problems in the Reliability and Asset Management arena?" 

A1) Panacea? No

I used to walk around collecting monthly vibration readings with a portable battery operated vibration data collector then download that to my PC to analyze the data and create a report with recommendations. - Analog!

Now I monitor vibration with a wireless sensor, 24 hours per day/ 7 days per week, and an AI/Machine learning application analyzes the massive amount of data that was sent to the cloud and the application notifies me when it has a recommendation to report for stable operation. As the Subject Matter expert, I still make the decision to accept or reject the recommendation. Digital Transformation - and a bit more effective than walkaround route-based data collection - but the same physics are at play = and a human expert needs to decide to act on the recommendation or not.

If you suffer from poor lubrication practices or poor precision installation practices you will simply be reporting on failures that could have easily been prevented. There is no real gain or ROI in that context.

Digital Transformation is the strategy and process that an Industry 3.0 organization (Automation) goes through to become an Industry 4.0 organization (Digitalization) to better achieve its organizational objective.

2) Will digital transformation improve availability and reduce Total Cost of Ownership [TCO]?  

A2) It can support good practices and processes by handling computations, sorting, collation, decision tree logic consistently.

TCO is highly influenced by early asset life cycle activities and later TCO is highly influenced by effective and efficient planning and execution. If you aim your digital transformation in support of excellent Asset Life Cycle activities - aligned to organization objectives - TCO will surely benefit.

The Ten Rights of Asset Management track well with the 10 Rights of Digitalization

Q3) What do you think of digital transformation acceptance at the floor level?  

A3) To create effective adoption, digital transformation has to have a strong answer for "why" from the frontline perspective. Effective frontline adoption requires 1 of 3 things and best of if it can deliver at least 2:

1) it solves an immediate frontline challenge or problem - that the frontline wants to solve

2) It advances frontline performance - in near real time

3) It makes for a better day for the frontline - even if no ROI or performance boost

Q4) What benefit they will see.... What's for them?  

A5) That is the $64,000 question and one you need to go out and ask them - NOT in an "I'm from management and I am here to help you" mode but using what Reliability Leaders call inquiry and authentic listening.

Listen, ask questions, stop talking so much!

Q5) Is it going to be become like RCM program?  

A5) For 50% of the organizations on the digital transformation journey without a policy, strategy and plan the chances of failure are at least 70%.

For those who create a clear digital transformation policy, strategy and plan aligned to organizational objectives in the context of the organization, they stand a 70% chance of success.

Digital Transformation is NOT a fad.  If you work around assets it is quickly becoming a survival strategy.

Q6) We are still fighting that battle, almost 40 years later of RCM discovery.

A6) No worry, if you have not mastered a strategy and plan around Digital Transformation for Reliability and Asset management in the next 24 months your organization is unlikely to be competitive.  

That is NOT the only strategy you need as you must create your Digital Transformation on the foundation of your Reliability and Asset Management strategy, your data strategy and your people and culture at work strategy.

I encourage you to find as many digital transformation opportunity sets as possible and rank them according to your business context. Prove small, fail and learn fast, and scale as soon as evidence is validated. Free cash flow from optimized decision making, resource planning and problem solving is a career maker. 

BTW do not forget to track, validate and report your accomplishments! The Uptime Elements Domain Mastery Belt program is an example of an effective project validation and acknowledgement.