Everyone's heard the trope of the manufacturing worker who resists change and—sometimes with good reason—sees technology as a threat. But Dale Mark has a different story to tell about workers and technology from the front lines of a plant floor in Marengo, Illinois. Mark is vice president of operations for UniCarriers, a forklift manufacturer that has been incrementally introducing automation and digital technology into its operations over the past 15 years.
"When we were first installing robots or building automation, there were some people that really embraced it," Mark says. "Other people were skeptical. And today I think there's more of a sense that people crave the technology."
He mentions one of many tiny affirmations: Plant leadership recently introduced a pilot project to manage employees' continuous improvement suggestions on an app. There was no hand-wringing, no harping that the old way was better. Instead, he says, "the response was almost like, 'What have you been waiting for!?'" Marks says it makes sense, as smartphones have become increasingly a part of people's daily lives.
Likewise, when Irene Petrick and Faith McCreary, a pair of Intel researchers, embarked on a study of manufacturers' challenges around digital transformation, to their surprise they heard little about technological hurdles. Instead, organizational problems prevailed.
Through a multimedia diary app where they could share stories of their work and the technologies they encountered, the overwhelming under-age-40 batch of respondents told of IT and OT clashes, departments like purchasing and operations running in their own lanes rather than collaborating, and a hesitancy from leaders to share data that could help workers do their jobs better.
"Workers want to be involved early, they think they should be involved early, and believe they have a lot to contribute from a knowledge perspective about the processes," says Petrick.
It's the leaders who are more hesitant around technology, Petrick says, as digital transformation has evolved into something much bigger than investing in a piece of automation equipment to rachet up a particularly plodding task. Work is changing, artificial intelligence is opening up possibilities and hierarchies are flattening as information-sharing across roles becomes the difference between understanding your customer or process and being snuffed out by a competitor.
"Workers interacting with the manufacturing processes themselves are hungry for change and know they have to do things differently in the future to remain competitive," Petrick says. "Senior leaders seem to be a little more risk-averse, and middle managers are all over the board."
That apprehension stems not from the technology itself, but from the broad cultural and organizational changes it brings.
Digital-savvy manufacturers and people who study them say that involving your people early in digital strategy, investing in training, rethinking and reassigning jobs as tasks, finding your technology champions, and looking for new opportunities are important parts of the equation.
Involve Your People Early
People must be integral to a digital strategy from the beginning, big or small, say Ravin Jesuthasan and John W. Boudreau, authors of Reinventing Jobs: A 4-Step Approach for Applying Automation to Work. And the authors don't mean people in the sense of "How many people can we substitute robots for?"
"It's very easy to get locked into saying, 'Give me back 20% of the labor cost because the robots are doing 20% of the work," says Boudreau. "It doesn't work that way."
Petrick advocates involving engineers, supervisors, tradespeople and line workers with expertise in their areas in "meaningful engagement forums" in the early stages of digital strategizing. Not an annual townhall meeting, but open dialogues "where people come prepared to talk about the environment they work in, the machines they work with, the insights they have and how they've worked with those machines for a long time."
Mike Mikula, chief engineer for Ford's Advanced Manufacturing Center, says that when designing applied technology for the factory, his team will bring in both hourly and salaried people "very early in the process" so they can talk about their challenges, share their expertise of the process and contribute ideas for improvement. This not only improves the end result; it empowers team members who will be using the technology, giving them a voice and a stake in its success.
For instance, when Mikula was a Ford area manager, he oversaw the automation of a particularly cumbersome-to-human-operators gear machine at the Van Dyke transmission plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan, that was slowing up the line.
"The cycle time of the line was very short, with people working very diligently at a very high speed," he recalls. "Many people would have a hard time executing the task in the time that was allowed." His engineering team consulted with skilled tradespeople and team leaders on the floor "to ideate around what we could do to help people execute the meshing of the gears in the time we had allotted." Mikula's team took those ideas and worked with different suppliers to come up with solutions, then did a design review with the same hourly workers "to agree on concepts to pursue to production and keep them engaged through the development of the production process. It required a significant amount of creative thinking, and we really did get valued input from everybody."
Rethink Work
Jesuthasan and Boudreau advise that leaders stop using the term jobs and instead break down work into tasks—often, tasks that are unsafe or physically difficult for humans to perform—and then determine which tasks are practical for robots to take over and which ones people can shift to and grow into, developing new proficiencies and ways of looking at the operation that increase productivity and open new opportunities for growth. After that, it's just a matter of looking at which traditional skills translate best into which new roles.
Maybe it's middle managers spending more time on coaching their team and becoming more savvy in interpreting data instead of devoting their days to allocating work and monitoring and tracking people, which automation can take over at the granular level. Maybe it's automating welding processes, then training welders to run a new CNC machining center.
Invest in Training
Fifteen years ago, UniCarriers began adding automation and digital technology to its operations, bringing in CNC machining and robotic welding. That was the beginning of a digital strategy that has brought automation to painting processes, lights-out laser cutting and a new ERP system to connect with data collection.
"We didn't have it all figured out," Mark said. It was the company's first step on the road to the "fairly well-defined factory 4.0 roadmap" it has today, "where we're constantly looking at technologies and where we think they apply and where we can implement them in the future."
Retraining workers for data-driven jobs is a big part of that strategy, and Mark says it's a key reason the company's workforce has not contracted with automation—instead, it's actually grown considerably. Training is a combination of in-house (including apprenticeships) through suppliers and a partnership with a local community college.
A retrained welder now rotates between operating robotic welding cells and the CNC machining center. What the new job lacks in hands-on work, it makes up for in higher thinking and less wear and tear and repetition, Mark believes.
The former welder "is more well-versed and can have more flexibility, which I think you know many individuals like," says Mark. "Also, doing manual welding full-time is strenuous work," so the job becomes more ergonomic. "The individuals like that and they recognize that."
UniCarriers' digital strategy also had provisions for retraining for "a new level of support that was more technically skilled maybe than the typical operator, but didn't require a degreed engineer"—a maintenance technician who could program robots and laser cutting machines. "That was an area that we really had to develop internally," says Mark.
Think Big
The redeployment of its talent has opened up opportunity for UniCarriers to bring more manufacturing in-house. When the company started its automation journey, it was building forklift frames but outsourced the components for the masts—the vertical lifting mechanism on the front of the forklift.
"There were very large pieces of rail that have to be processed prior to welding, and we had previously had that work done on the outside by a supplier," says Mark.
The engineering team studied that process, and determined the company could cut costs and reduce inventory by doing the work in-house. They were right, and the company soon began looking for other ways to insource. The Marengo plant now assembles its internal-combustion forklift engines and transmissions in-house as well. (UniCarriers already owned the engine technology and purchased the transmission supplier a few years ago.)
Intel's Faith McCreary, left, and Irene Petrick.
"We made that investment and then we trained our employees to run those machines, and now we're making tight tolerance machine castings that go into transmissions for forklifts day in and day out," Mark says. The forklift business is very competitive, he adds.
Becoming more vertically integrated allows UniCarriers to control the cost, quality and delivery, and gain an edge on the competition.
The workforce is organically a part of that strategy and change, says Mark. "When we're looking to develop a new application or a new process, we always involve the shop-floor employees and supervisors early on because they're the experts," he says. "And we draw from their knowledge to understand how we can make the process better and learn where we might have problems today and how we can eliminate those troubles in the future."
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Safety is often looked at as just being a cost—"something we have to do”—said Walter Fluharty, vice president of EHS and organizational development at the Youngstown, Ohio, based Simon Roofing. But if you build a culture around safety and engage people in working toward a common goal, “you can actually add value to an organization,” he added.
Fluharty, whose company has a fleet of 400 trucks spread across 66 U.S. branches, led the “Distracted Drivers R US—Assessment RX for Success” session at the 2018 Safety Leadership Conference.
“How many of you have been to a safety course, a safety presentation and it hasn’t been a whole lot of fun?” said Fluharty, who’s not averse to cracking a joke or telling a goofy story on his way to making a point. “We’re going to try to make it as fun as possible.”
Assessments are different than audits, he explained. Instead of just ticking things off a checklist, assessments bring people from across the organization together to take stock, do some soul-searching and make improvements. And they are different from surveys, which don’t allow for additional questions and often have a low participation rate.
In order for an assessment to be successful, Fluharty recommends at least 20% of a workforce come together in “focus groups”—to discuss open-ended questions.
Some other things to know about assessments, said Fluharty:
Focus groups are best if they’re broken out by the functional group, i.e., maintenance, service people on the road, operations, engineering.
Sometimes one person wants to dominate the conversation, or has an agenda and wants to be sure it gets attention. Chastising that person for talking too much will just insult them, however, and cause everyone else to clam up. Instead, stay positive. “You can say, ‘Bert, that is a great input. Can we take that offline?’” Or, “Is there anything else you’d like to share about that? Who else has thought about that?”
Avoid having a direct supervisor in the assessment—employees might not open up if they fear any type of retaliation.
Include a self-assessment, and let respondents know that the responses they give on paper will be anonymous.
Fluharty had the SLC group take a distracted driving self-assessment. “It’s really, really quick. It can be an antecedent. Use it as a trigger, to get your drivers thinking about ‘Am I at risk or not? What do I need to do to change these behaviors so I’ll be safe on the road.’”
He recommends that safety leaders actively facilitate these self-assessments, rather than just handing them to people. Preface them with a reason to care: “Here’s why this is so important.”
When he facilities self-assessments at Simon, Fluharty sometimes shares this story to wake up the group: “One of our drivers was texting, he didn’t look up, he didn’t see the stop sign. He ran into the side of an 80-year-old gentleman in a Ford Ranger. Horrific injuries. The person was in intensive care for 37 days. His life has changed forever.”
When safeguarding devices, there are many choices and references. It’s important to consider the task, the hazard and your options. If you pick the wrong safeguard, productivity suffers or somebody finds a workaround—and that increases your risk.
You can use the OSHA Minor Servicing Exception as an alternative to lockout/tagout (shutting the machine down completely to perform maintenance tasks), but you have to be careful how you do it. A risk assessment can help your engineering team design safe workarounds to lockout/tagout.
At the Safety Leadership Conference in November 2018, Steve Ludwig and Patrick Barry of Rockwell Automation shared safeguarding alternatives to lockout/tagout:
1. Fix the position of the operator. In the early stages of engineering on a new or refurbished machine, the positioning and the design of controls can prevent the machine’s operation while exposed. But problems can occur when two operators collaborate on a machine designed for a single operator. In that case, there’s not a lot to be done in the design phase to prevent exposure.
2. Prevent access by using a physical barrier. When that barrier is removed, the machine senses that and goes to a safe state. An interlocking guard can be used for certain specific tasks. For a more inexperienced worker, it may be beneficial to list the tasks on or near the machine.
With a locking gate switch, the machine stops when operator goes in. But if the operator is performing a cleaning task, the locking gate switch tends to be one of those things susceptible to operator bypass, which can cause safety issues.
3. Fix process conditions. Rather than shut everything off, find a condition to fix in place that keeps the person safe. For instance, if a gate is open, it will only turn in a different direction. This is where all the development is going on for manufacturers: Ways you can fix different conditions.
4. Install presence sensing. An electronic barrier can detect entry and stop the machine.
Safety and cybersecurity are interconnected in the manufacturing environment Security breaches can trip systems that stop machinery or alert operators in the event of a problem, damaging equipment, placing people at risk—even causing environmental calamities.
Yet at many manufacturers, the safety and information technology teams do not effectively collaborate. “If you discover a vulnerability in IT, you patch it and move on,” says Steve Ludwig, safety programs manager for Rockwell Automation, speaking at the 2018 Safety Leadership Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, last week. “On the [operations technology] side, that’s not the case. We need more education in the engineering community about OT risks.”
Safety-related security breaches can occur when:
Employees or contractors inadvertently plug an infected machine into the system; connect to an unsecure network; or download the wrong program.
Disgruntled current or former employees, knowing the ins and outs of a system, break in and cause damage.
Hackers break into an operations system for financial, competitive, or political reasons.
State-sponsored spies target critical infrastructure and production systems to disrupt operations or steal secrets.
Cybercriminals seek to disrupt, infect or shut down critical infrastructure, from nuclear plants to water supplies and oil refineries.
EHS, operations and IT teams should work together to identify safety data requirements for operations systems and develop a risk-management strategy for security threats and vulnerabilities, as well as their potential implications on safety. It’s up to leadership to advocate for this collaboration and make sure employees companywide understand its importance, said Ludwig.
Basic cybersecurity hygiene involves knowing your assets and their potential risks,. “Very few plants have a complete list of all of their PLCs” where they came from and how long they’ve been in operation, said Ludwig. “The focus has always been on productivity and maintaining that uptime.”
A safety assessment looks at not only standard operator functions but all human-machine interactions, including machine setup, maintenance, cleaning and sanitation, as well as training and administrative requirements. In addition, companies should expand their traditional scope of this assessment and look at potential cyberattack risk.
“With safety assessment, you’re going through the steps—what is the normal operation of that machine?” said Ludwig. “How long will that machine be safe?” With a connected enterprise, you can get information on the safety front like how often a door is opened or shut on a machine.
Ludwig asked the audience if safety was being called upon to address security at their companies, to a mixed response. One audience member commented that his plant was not addressing cybersecurity in its safety contingency plan, though there had been talk of more collaboration between IT and OT. Other safety leaders remarked that they were, intentionally or unintentionally, sometimes left out of leadership meetings about cybersecurity.
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, in order to be safer, companies typically had to slow down. In order to increase productivity, they had to take more risks.
Then companies realized that safety couldn’t play second fiddle to productivity--they needed excellence in both. Social media had a dramatic effect. Photos, video and accounts of company mishaps could go viral and destroy a brand.
“We can’t keep a secret anymore,” said Mark Eitzman, director of business development—safety and cybersecurity, for Rockwell Automation. “That has completely changed the landscape from a risk perspective.”
Today, the safest companies in the world are also the most productive, said Eitzman. If you’re average in safety, you’re average in productivity.
“We try to find out what the attributes are of these companies, and help these other companies replicate it—join the club.”
Eitzman led a session called “The IoT Effect on Safety Maturity and Compliance” at the Safety Leadership Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday.
Culture, compliance and capital are all key to achieving safety excellence. Rockwell tracks these attributes in its Safety Maturity Index. The safest companies invest in safety; they actively cultivate a culture of safety; and they go above and beyond mere compliance.
Less-safe companies—the bottom 60%--cling to the old idea that investing in safety could interfere with other prerogatives, “so let’s not talk about safety at all.” They also strive only to meet the minimum standards for compliance.
Another 25% tend to put safety first, with safety programs in place and good safety key performance indicators, but sacrifice operational excellence.
The top 10 to 15% of companies in the Safety Maturity Index “refuse to sacrifice safety or productivity,” said Eitzman.
One of the characteristics of top performers “is the degree to which EHS and engineering collaborate,” he added. At many companies, “if engineering is having a meeting on production design, sometimes they don’t want to invite safety. At the mature ones, safety is in those meetings.”
The top companies also tend to be more adept at turning raw data into contextual information. “So humans can analyze it; do something with it, and close the loop,” he said.
To illustrate the benefits of analytics, Eitzman used examples related to a rotary filler from a bottling company. A rotary filler is a huge, fast-moving machine that fills a high volume of bottles at once—and can be deadly if a worker makes the wrong move or interferes with its operation. “You’ve got data in the control system of that machine,” said Eitzman.
Example 1: Daily, weekly and monthly reports of Emergency Stop Data from the rotary filler tell where e-stops happened, what caused them, the number of stops and which plants had few, and which had a lot. This helped production leaders pinpoint where safety processes are flawed or not being followed or machines are defective, impeding productivity.
Example 2: A digital twin of the rotary filler mapped access points for the equipment and how often a human uses those access points, then charts anticipated vs. actual exposure to the machine. Eitzman showed a chart from the beverage plant that had access points in red where actual human exposure was higher than 500% vs. anticipated exposure. Using that data, the production team was able to better pinpoint risk areas.
Eitzman addressed four types of data:
Descriptive: what happened?
Diagnostic: Why did it happen? Turn data into contextual information.
Predictive: What will happen?
Prescriptive: What should I do?
“From a safety perspective, the level you’ll see an impact is predicting and preventing [prescribing],” said Eitzman. “You’ll want to be a part of those conversations. What companies get started on that journey, it’s a very simple step by step: What kind of data can I get and who needs to use it? EHS most definitely has a place at that table.”
In the 1980s and early ‘90s, in order to be safer, companies typically had to slow down. In order to increase productivity, they had to take more risks.
Then companies realized that safety couldn’t play second fiddle to productivity--they needed excellence in both. Social media had a dramatic effect. Photos, video and accounts of company mishaps could go viral and destroy a brand.
“We can’t keep a secret anymore,” said Mark Eitzman, director of business development—safety and cybersecurity, for Rockwell Automation. “That has completely changed the landscape from a risk perspective.”
Today, the safest companies in the world are also the most productive, said Eitzman. If you’re average in safety, you’re average in productivity.
“We try to find out what the attributes are of these companies, and help these other companies replicate it—join the club.”
Eitzman led a session called “The IoT Effect on Safety Maturity and Compliance” at the Safety Leadership Conference in Louisville, Kentucky, on Wednesday.
Culture, compliance and capital are all key to achieving safety excellence. Rockwell tracks these attributes in its Safety Maturity Index. The safest companies invest in safety; they actively cultivate a culture of safety; and they go above and beyond mere compliance.
Less-safe companies—the bottom 60%--cling to the old idea that investing in safety could interfere with other prerogatives, “so let’s not talk about safety at all.” They also strive only to meet the minimum standards for compliance.
Another 25% tend to put safety first, with safety programs in place and good safety key performance indicators, but sacrifice operational excellence.
The top 10 to 15% of companies in the Safety Maturity Index “refuse to sacrifice safety or productivity,” said Eitzman.
One of the characteristics of top performers “is the degree to which EHS and engineering collaborate,” he added. At many companies, “if engineering is having a meeting on production design, sometimes they don’t want to invite safety. At the mature ones, safety is in those meetings.”
The top companies also tend to be more adept at turning raw data into contextual information. “So humans can analyze it; do something with it, and close the loop,” he said.
To illustrate the benefits of analytics, Eitzman used examples related to a rotary filler from a bottling company. A rotary filler is a huge, fast-moving machine that fills a high volume of bottles at once—and can be deadly if a worker makes the wrong move or interferes with its operation. “You’ve got data in the control system of that machine,” said Eitzman.
Example 1: Daily, weekly and monthly reports of Emergency Stop Data from the rotary filler tell where e-stops happened, what caused them, the number of stops and which plants had few, and which had a lot. This helped production leaders pinpoint where safety processes are flawed or not being followed or machines are defective, impeding productivity.
Example 2: A digital twin of the rotary filler mapped access points for the equipment and how often a human uses those access points, then charts anticipated vs. actual exposure to the machine. Eitzman showed a chart from the beverage plant that had access points in red where actual human exposure was higher than 500% vs. anticipated exposure. Using that data, the production team was able to better pinpoint risk areas.
Eitzman addressed four types of data:
Descriptive: what happened?
Diagnostic: Why did it happen? Turn data into contextual information.
Predictive: What will happen?
Prescriptive: What should I do?
“From a safety perspective, the level you’ll see an impact is predicting and preventing [prescribing],” said Eitzman. “You’ll want to be a part of those conversations. What companies get started on that journey, it’s a very simple step by step: What kind of data can I get and who needs to use it? EHS most definitely has a place at that table.”