How we went from “going to work” to “being at work” overnight
As part of their daily operations, executives, managers and operators in industrial businesses are used to working with data and information from systems like:
- DCS (Distributed Control System)
- SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition)
- MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems)
- EAM (Enterprise Asset Management)
- APM (Asset Performance Management)
- PLM (Product Lifecycle Management)
Many of these systems have been around for a long time and operate on legacy platforms that require complex IT infrastructure.
Executives and operators use information from these systems in reports, BI dashboards and graphs to make critical operational decisions that impact their production, safety, cost, and supply chain to mention a few. They also collaborate on the information through secure corporate networks and IT infrastructure that house all of these systems and information.
Morning meetings and production planning meetings are critical coordination points for these businesses, and everyone has the real-time information at hand on corporate laptops, tablets and even mobile devices. It is all nicely ring-fenced in closed corporate networks in systems that were designed for people to work from plants, factories and sites. It was perfect for the “factory worker” style of work where managers and operators where on-site, in close proximity of the DCS or control room.
But that all changed with the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic with “stay at home” orders that forced executives and managers across most industries to run operations from their bedrooms now. Office blocks at factories, mines, and oil fields are suddenly empty with small numbers of operational staff rotating on shifts to keep operations going.