From manufacturing data to continuous process improvement42 From manufacturing data to continuous process improvement42 From manufacturing data to continuous process improvement42 From manufacturing data to continuous process improvement

From manufacturing data to continuous process improvement

As a software professional and a member of the Brainport High Tech Software Cluster, Angelo Hulshout has been looking into the possibilities of Smart Industry for some years now. This spring, he took up the challenge to bring the benefi ts of production agility, as he calls it for now, to the market and set up a new business around that. Currently, he’s working out the plan and making the fi rst realization steps – with fi rst potential customers in the Netherlands and Italy.

Angelo Hulshout

In each 21st-century manufacturing plant, production is controlled to a more or lesser extent by software. Individual machines are controlled by software running on a PLC, a soft-PLC server or a dedicated controller. Production lines are controlled by production control software (PCS) and whole factories by manufacturing execution systems (MES). For planning and logistics, a dedicated or commercially available enterprise resource planning (ERP) system is added. At the same time, a lot of plants still use spreadsheets and written notes to analyze production performance, machine con guration or logistics planning.

Smart Industry, or at least part of it, aims at integrating these software systems and the data they use and generate into a cleverer solution. Combining all the data allows for more thorough and accurate analysis, and based on that, process improvements and cost/bene t optimizations. is can be done in the context of a single factory but also across factories, with or without including logistics.

Production agility

With this basic concept in mind, and while working on a system for pet food manufacturing, I realized that, while a large part of our current industry still hasn’t heard of this 4th industrial revolution, the combination of data gathering and analysis, and machine learning would be a basis for improving the agility of production facilities. Production agility, the name I put on this for the time being, isn’t new. In the works of Eliyahu Goldratt in the 80s, the ideas of reducing work in progress, eliminating bottlenecks and working with small batches were already used as a starting point for more cost-e cient production – followed by lean manufacturing in the 30 years after.

At the core lies the data that’s available in the factory, about all parts of production, and although in Goldratt’s initial

works, the role of computers and software in analyzing this data plays a crucial role, there are still a lot of production facilities that fail to make optimal use of it. Often because the software only works with parts of the available data or because data analysis is reduced to human labor, performed by people using spreadsheets instead of dedicated, domain-speci c and optimized analysis tools. is can be xed, by introducing software solutions that combine exible data gathering with proper data analysis tools and possibly also machine learning.

In essence, what I’m aiming at is using the data coming out of factories to analyze where bottlenecks or suboptimal processes can be found in the production and logistics chain – either in a single factory or across multiple factories. e results can then be fed to machine learning algorithms, which focus on optimizing what has been found. e output of that can be any combination of process changes, machine or production con gurations or even changes to the logistics processes in and around the factories.

Facilitating technologies

Within Smart Industry, a number of technologies or technology areas are identi ed that can help facilitate this. I want to introduce three that potentially play a major role in improving production agility.

First of all, the solution I have in mind will require the integration of factories and factory equipment with the industrial internet of things (IIoT). e IIoT is a network of industrial devices that are connected to the internet – either directly or through a so-called gateway. Having this connection in place allows data that’s available to or provided by these devices to be transferred over the internet so that it can be combined and fed to analysis applications. ese applications, connected to the internet, are a possible application of the sec-

ond technology area, the cloud. Cloud applications may live on dedicated servers owned by an organization or be hosted on a public platform like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud. Running applications on these platforms can be done very cost-e ectively, as it reduces or even eliminates the need for having to maintain own servers and data centers.

A third technology area, which can optionally also be hosted in the cloud, is machine learning. In this form of arti cial intelligence, algorithms use data coming from machines to make the behavior of these machines more e cient and e ective. A machine-learning algorithm could, for example, be used to change the order of production steps or the parameters of a single production step to improve the results.

The plan

I plan to set up a company that helps manufacturers apply these technologies to reap the bene ts of Smart Industry. I’ve seen a lot of situations where having the appropriate data and analysis tools available would lead to faster and better solutions. We have a lot of IT and software running our world, but in manufacturing, there’s a lot to gain.

I aim to make two potential customers into lead customers and build a company around the solution we can develop for them. e exact shape and technology choice of that solution aren’t entirely clear yet, but that will change rapidly over the coming months.

In doing this, I’m collaborating with partners in the Netherlands and Italy, also thanks to my connection to the Brainport High Tech Software Cluster and Intellimech. ese two organizations both have Industry 4.0 as a key focus, and being a liaison between the two allows me to work with a lot of people that can contribute to my plans.

is is the rst article in a series that’s going to follow Angelo Hulshout’s idea from inception, through startup to what he aims to make a successful company. He’s writing this series for several reasons. First of all, because it forces him to record his progress. Second, to motivate others to pick up similar challenges, because our industry needs to make the step towards the Smart Industry future. ird, because he enjoys writing, giving him both pleasure and new ideas. e next article will focus on a speci c use case that the new solution will address and may even include initial customer feedback.

Angelo Hulshout is an experienced independent software craftsman and a member of the Brainport High Tech Software Cluster.

Edited by Nieke Roos

The Agile coach as a counselor – what we can learn from Star Trek

In adopting Agile, organizations ride three waves. In the third wave, the Agile coach will evolve into a delivery coach or a counselor. The delivery coach is best compared with a business consultant. To get a better understanding of what the counselor role could look like, it seems we need to warp into the future.

Derk-Jan de Grood

Organizations that start with Agile often have a strong focus on teams. When the individual teams hit their stride, the focus shifts to inter-team collaboration. ere’s a growing understanding that business agility and responsiveness are key to survive and stay ahead of the competition. To yield value, the work of single Agile teams should, therefore, be integrated and embedded in larger business processes.

In the second wave, the adoption of Agile is shifting from a single-team focus to a wider organizational approach. e role of the Agile coach changes from learning the team how to do their work to initializing cross-team collaboration and creating a focus on continuous delivery. Once teams have learned to plan and launch collectively built releases, the focus shifts from realizing technical products to business delivery. is is the third wave. e performance dialogue will transition from a release focus to a focus on business impact.

If not done before, in the third wave, management will need to show Agile leadership. ey’ll need to lead the way by explaining the strategic themes, de ning the business aim of the next release and helping the product owners prioritize. ey should also stimulate raising impediments when dependencies lead to delays or introduce inef ciencies. e leaders should take an active role in eliminating them and, if necessary, take it to a higher level in the organization.

Science fi ction?

In the third wave, the Agile coach is working closely with the leaders. I foresee him evolving into a delivery coach or a counselor. e delivery coach is best compared with a business consultant. He has a strong focus on optimizing business value and will spot bottlenecks in the development process and reduce local optimizations that don’t work in an end-to-end value stream. Furthermore, the delivery coach tries to build quality into the software development lifecycle. e Agile counselor doesn’t focus that much on the development process itself but aims to empower leadership. Although leadership coaching isn’t new in itself, there are few descriptions of this role. e best example I’ve found comes from the Star Trek series. Are we talking science ction here? I don’t know. But to get a better understanding of what the counselor role could look like, it seems we need to warp into the future.

According to the Star Trek Encyclopaedia, the mid-24th-century Starship and Starbase crews include a counselor. His responsibility is the mental well-being of the crew and civilian sta . e position is a vital one, warranting inclusion in the senior sta of the Federation agship. e ship’s counselor also has a diplomatic role, advising the captain in rst contacts and other situations. He has the power to relieve other o cers and crewmembers if he feels that they’re unable to perform their duties e ectively. is also includes the ship’s captain.

Intervention

In third-wave Agile organizations, the teams have great autonomy. ey do their work, whether they’re coached or not. Even so, the Agile coach will walk the oor and actively sample their mood. Just like the ship counselor from Star Trek has a responsibility for the well-being of the crew,

the Agile coach has an interest in the well- being of the individual team members and the way they collaborate. When he senses a problem that may a ect the sustainable delivery, predictability or the team’s continuous learning, he’ll take action. is can result in an intervention towards the team, the scrum master or the product owner, or action towards leadership. ird-wave organization teams have been doing Agile for some time. Ine ciencies at the team level can be solved within the team, of course, but the Agile counselor will prefer to take it on with the leadership team to see how they can facilitate a sustainable solution. He has learned by now that it’s far more e cient to create awareness with leadership and ensure they take appropriate action to facilitate and guide the team than to solve it locally.

Inclusion in the leadership team enables the Agile coach to address these concerns and potential problems and he can even provide feedback to other leaders on their leadership style and the impact it has. He should facilitate a root cause analysis so that the leadership team gains insight into

the problem’s origin. e addressed concern may be rooted in the teams, in the enterprise organization but can also originate in the leadership team itself.

Uncharted grounds

I doubt whether the Agile coach should be able to relieve leaders from their duty like the Star Trek ship counselor can, but as an advisor, he should be empowered to advise the manager when one of his leaders or team members (deliberately or accidentally) endangers the organization’s purpose. e Agile coach should therefore have a trusted relationship with the manager and feel free to speak his mind. Even if this means being critical towards the leadership.

We’re not likely to encounter extraterrestrial life, but it’s not uncommon for organizations to walk uncharted grounds. New business partners and suppliers might lead to rst contacts and Agile coaches can advise the manager on their approach. Additionally, managers are likely to get into unknown situations. Recently, our organization had to take action against the coronavirus. I found myself teaming up with management to plan extra department meetings to inform the employees about the measures that needed to be taken. We gave them a platform to share their thoughts and connect with their leadership team. I suddenly realized that by doing that, I was acting as a counselor – advising the captain in a new situation.

I don’t claim to be an organizational counselor, nor to fully understand the role. But maybe few of us do. Since most organizations have yet to reach the third wave, the third-wave roles still lack a clear de nition. Nevertheless, I believe it’s worth discussing, as it will shape the Agile coach of tomorrow.

Derk-Jan de Grood works as an Agile transition coach for Squerist. As a consultant, he helps organizations with their Agile transformation and embedding quality. He’s an experienced trainer and he wrote several successful books. In 2016, he published “Agile in the real world – Starting with Scrum.” On his blog djdegrood. wordpress.com, he shares his knowledge and experience for everyone to bene t.

Edited by Nieke Roos

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