On Innovation or Are You Still Watching Black-and-White TV?

The new normal, back to old habits or learning new ones

- A non-technical article about innovation culture -

What is the new normal?

How is business done?

Should I work from home, from the office or some other place?

How will digital tools and remote support affect my daily work?

In the picture above I am happy as a lobster (?) biking to a face-to-face meeting for the first time in 69 days.

Yes, there are probably many questions that many have due to the situation around the globe due to the social and health situation. I spent 69 days myself without any meetings at an office or other external site, working with digital tools where online meetings became the normal daily routine. Over the last 8-9 years I have spent a lot of time traveling, working from other sites than the regular office, so it was not new to me but I have never in my career experienced such a long continuous streak of workdays without being able to meet anyone face to face in an office.

Efficient communication and being hands-on is perhaps even more important when you are not able to meet face to face with colleagues, clients, partners and suppliers. During this time period it became a requirement for everyone and I have also learnt a few new things from having been forced 100% to this work pattern. Keeping meetings short and efficient, have enough breaks, rather have them frequently and short instead of a long one late in the day. And avoid scheduling back-to-back meetings (it is generally a bad idea).

In the Nordic countries we see a partial relief of lockdown restrictions and hopefully it is continuing to go in this direction. I believe that the flexible way of working from home, online, partially from the office will still be valid and continue to be the norm for many

Being a nimble tech company we have been able to have the main team in the office and our habits of quick online communication has been there all the time. What we have learnt is that for many clients this has been new and challenging, as it has required them time to build new routines and procedures in order to get decisions made. But we have gone further than this, many clients have also asked us if and how we can support them remotely for new installation work, commissioning and startup. From before we have occasionally done remote guidance and support but we have largely expanded this type of solutions and services in this period. This will be a topic we are covering in one of our coming webinars.

Go digital but keep it human

Our work to make industry a better and safer place to be has continued with equal force during this period. Our capabilities to monitor and scan both deposits and emulsion layers in real-time enables new possibilities to the industry. Reliable and useful data with a high frequency in relative terms is part of providing the opportunity to get to the next level of operational excellence. We hear from many clients how this opens up new avenues and possibilities for sub-process optimization and used as part of asset optimization. A game changer in a way. And that brings me to the headline of this article, based on some highly entertaining and interesting conversations held this week. From before the industry has been using various devices and instrumentation to get the type of data we are providing. However, our package of in-process sensors/tomography/AI is what we see is getting the game to a new level with more detailing and data even from highly challenging operating conditions. A game changer for known applications. So, using an allegory from consumer products: instead of watching black-and-white TV we can provide you color and OLED, if I use that allegory as an example, meaning that we have stepped up the level of detailing and information with a new generation of technology. Once you switch you don’t want to go back. I hope you feel tempted to get in touch with us. Get onboard!

Digital tech and software can be fascinating and open up new opportunities. But the question is not about showing that it works and do a pilot. That was never my game, the beauty of the challenge is to scale it up. Tech gets really interesting when it can be scaled up to optimize asset and portfolio performance. Cooperation and partnering between end-users and tech companies are crucial – probably also involving the service providers. Working jointly there should be clear answers on scalability; the piloting should as success criteria give answers both on technical performance and the value. Add the context of scale and how to integrate the solution into the clients’ systems. At this point the de-risking should also be clear. To make innovation work we need the digital era with the human connection. And make this work well, generating value at a large scale.

Our innovation journey at Rocsole continues, we are soon launching our webinar series. We want to bring you our knowledge. There you can learn more about our technology and solutions for a variety of relevant application areas. And it is not about TV’s (but it can be applied to electronics production processes). Stay Safe!

Follow us on LinkedIn to get the notification for the webinar announcements!

To make it clear: Rocsole provides proprietary sensors and inspection tools for pipelines and tanks/separators with the SEE BEYOND principle. One of the main advantages of the technology is that it can differentiate all the fluid (oil, gas, water) and solid (waxes, scales, hydrates, sand) phases inside pipelines and tanks—even when there is deposition present on the sensor. Using tomographic technology to address flow assurance challenges that have been previously unsolved, Oil & Gas operators can now see and monitor—in real-time—deposition and flow regimes inside pipes and interfaces and the emulsion layer inside separator tanks. For more info, see www.rocsole.com.