Innovative Thinking

Automation isn’t a desire, it’s a need of the hour. Every plant operations manager is aware of this need and the impact it has on the overall safety, reliability and economic efficiency. Still, companies are sometimes suspicious of adopting such technologies as the risk for failure is significant while the margin of error near to zero. This is especially true in large-scale industries where even a single hour of downtime due to delayed or malfunctioned automation can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of losses.

Dedicated departments for engineering, environment, health and safety can be found in almost every mid to large sized manufacturing company. These departments have little collective knowledge-pool and coherence, since traditionally their KPIs have very little overlapping. For instance, engineers continuously work with operations to improve productivity & efficiency of the equipment, while safety professionals analyze & reduce risks. Therefore, it’s very rare for the two departments to cross paths. However, this attitude has to change if an enterprise wants to keep itself at par with the competition and adjust according to the latest market trends.