Adventure or culture shock
2 Jun 2008
The language and concepts surrounding manufacturing IT and the drive to link ERP-type business software to process control and automation systems must seem alien to many people working on the shopfloor or out on site at process facilities of all types.
However, these high-tech concepts are now firmly on the agenda for any major process operation planning its long-term business and manufacturing strategy.
It is down to management to put in place organisational cultures with the vision to ensure employees at all levels are open and adaptable to the seismic changes that clearly lie ahead. This will ensure that the drive to the process sector of the future is an exciting and rewarding adventure - as explained by Wyeth and Rockwell experts (p33) - rather than something that everyone is dragged into kicking and screaming.
The value of a positive company-wide culture applies equally to day-to-day activities - as highlighted by PICME boss Michael Glass in his comments (p37) on the current state of plant maintenance in the UK process industries.
Despite an ageing demographic, Glass believes that the workforce in the UK process industries is open to change and new concepts of work, such as lean and Six Sigma, within maintenance and engineering.
“It’s all a question of motivation,” he says. “Doing things differently can be fun and provide a great sense of achievement that can become addictive … Perhaps as a profession we just need to be a little less conservative and give a few radical things a try.”
The value of positive corporate culture might also be noted by management and staff at the Ineos Grangemouth site (p6). A move to a more positive - perhaps Scandinavian-style - approach to employee relationship might well have helped to avoid the very damaging industrial dispute we have seen in recent weeks.
