When should innovation show up?
Marc Laplante
Asset management domain expert committed to taking the fun and excitement out of asset management. Three decades of international standards, enterprise advisory, digital solutions, and implementation experience.
In 2017, the CNBC Squawk Box, promoted a certain technology company to fifth place on its Disruptor 50 list.? During the interview, the CEO talked about how we can "actually" predict a failure before it happens.
An article written a couple of years later, by one of the world's most expensive consulting firms, described how "innovative industrial companies are swapping a reactive, manual, and labor-intensive repair lifecycle for one that's proactive and automated".?
There isn't anything innovative about recognizing that the proper care and feeding of assets produces dividends that include minimized needless spending, fewer failures, increased availability, and optimized utilization of labor and expertise.? Those who don't do this well, do more reacting, spend needlessly, are less competitive, put people in harm's way, and piss off customers.
Most middle schoolers understand this.
So where should innovation show up?? First, organizations should stay off the technology long enough to design the solution (solution does NOT mean software, sensors or AI).? Innovation should only show up when it supports a well-designed solution.? Technology is the by-product of a process that is led by design, supported by innovation, not the other way around.
Can innovation solve problems we didn't know we had?? Of course!
Society has benefitted from true disruptive innovation and the last 20 years is full of examples. AI-enabled predictive maintenance isn't one of them.
Critical failures, unplanned downtime, and reactive maintenance are known problems.? In the world of maintenance and reliability, innovation should produce something that leads to fewer events to react to, not the ability to react faster.?
Asset Performance Management enables an organization to contain risk, cost, and performance.? When applied correctly, it removes guess work and eliminates surprises. It doesn't predict or prevent failures.? It eliminates them.
Product leader| Innovator| Discovery+ Delivery+ Commercialization| Executive MBA| MS| PMP| CMRP| Lean SSBB
1 年I read about the type 3 error recently: giving the right answer to the wrong question. Agree 100% with you Marc. The right question isn’t how can we detect problems faster. The right question is how can we prevent problems. Great insights!
Data Scientist for industrial solutions
1 年What?!!!??? Totally innovative statements here, don't know what you're talking about here ?? ?? ?? <- that got 3 cry laugh emojis
M.Sc. Maintenance & Reliability - Freelance Consultant
1 年Marc, when we discuss reliability in the context that is “not new” we need to look at the “Why, What, Where, When, Who and How”. What is not changing is Why we do reliability and what it is. Where we perform reliability is ever changing based on what’s new to sell. When we do reliability is changing by moving our engineered intervention to the left of the deflection point on the P-F curve. AI will drive this work. The how is changing to reflect technology and The who is changing as AI has and will impact reliability with data and smart algorithms. This is now being supported by data scientists. Currently Reliability professionals are not equipped to support. The How is changing to reflect the new technology. We as a function of the value chain must keep these aspects in focus to enable productivity while staying in touch with progress.