How Can a Mentor Help You Automate Processes in Industrial Business?
Table of Contents
- 1. Evaluate Current Processes and Identify Automation Opportunities
- 2. Guides Technology Selection Aligned with Your Infrastructure
- 3. Designs Scalable Automation Architectures
- 4. Optimizes Control Room Integration and Real-Time Visibility
- 5. Accelerates Implementation Through Best Practices
- 6. Ensures Compliance and Safety in Automation Rollouts
- 7. Develops Internal Talent for Long-Term Automation Success
- Conclusion
Industrial automation has become an essential part of industrial operations at present. It helps reduce human error and improve performance. Organizations often focus on acquiring the latest automation tools but ignore mentorship. Mentorship is an important factor in achieving success.
Without proper mentoring, teams in such environments as control rooms for example often struggle with misconfigured systems. The lack of proper guidance from an experienced mentor will lead to resource wastage and even create safety risks. With mentorship, teams will be able to adapt quickly to changes. Mentors help teams to work according to the automation strategies. They contribute more than just providing technical guidance.
In this article, we’ll analyse how mentorship improves the automation process in industrial business. While also understanding that investing in people is as important as investing in automation tools.
1. Evaluate Current Processes and Identify Automation Opportunities
Industrial businesses need first to understand what and how they are going to automate. Automating the wrong process can increase costs and underutilize the technology. With a thorough evaluation, businesses can identify repetitive tasks and faulty operations that need to be automated. Mentors bring practical experience to improve business operations.
Mentors perform process audits and observe the current workflows. They also analyze the historical performance data and detect inefficiencies. Not all tasks can be automated. They identify processes that will provide high returns when automated and point out areas that are suitable for automation. They help to prioritize processes that consume more resources or processes being repeated. By prioritizing automation, they help industrial businesses achieve their targets.
2. Guides Technology Selection Aligned with Your Infrastructure
Selecting the right technologies that suit the operational needs is a challenging aspect of industrial automation. The wrong choice can lead to failures and resource wastage.
An experienced mentor will examine the current architecture and guide the selection of the right automation tool, like PLCs, SCADA systems, or sensors. They will help to select tools that match the operational goals. Mentors will guide in integrating the new PLC with the old SCADA system. Or even to select sensor networks that are compatible with IIoT platforms based on how they suit the operational environment.
3. Designs Scalable Automation Architectures
With business growth, operational demands change. Automation systems must be flexible and adapt to the changing requirements. Therefore, it is important to design scalable automation architectures.
A mentor will make sure that the design of the system will support the current and future objectives of the organization. They help in developing modular systems like sensors and HMI interfaces. Mentors guide them to design them to work independently.
4. Optimizes Control Room Integration and Real-Time Visibility
Mentors play an important role in designing the control room environment. They focus on creating well-organized HMI and SCADA dashboards that provide operators with clear and useful information. They also give importance to setting up alarm systems with proper prioritization. Mentors can help to highlight critical alarms and to reduce non-essential alarms.
Mentors guide in integrating real-time analytical tools and help monitor performance. These improvements help teams to make proper decisions quickly and to take proactive measures.
5. Accelerates Implementation Through Best Practices
Delays and failures are major problems during automation implementation. Automation projects require proper planning to avoid such disruptions. Proper mentorship will help to apply proven frameworks and best practices to minimize risks. Mentors can bring in frameworks and methods that have already been tested over multiple projects.
With the experience across industries, they will be able to predict common risks and implement proactive strategies. This will help to reduce the chances of risks. Transferring from manual to automated processes can lead to production delays if not handled properly. Mentors will guide employees and train them toward automated processes slowly.
6. Ensures Compliance and Safety in Automation Rollouts
It is important to follow safety and industry standards when you automate in industrial sectors like Oil and Gas. Failing to follow these standards can lead to accidents and create legal issues. Mentors guide the industrial businesses to follow industrial standards and internal safety rules.
Mentors help control room operators and teams work according to the industry standards, like ISO 9001 and OSHA. They make sure that the automation systems are designed and carried out according to the rules and regulations. This protects the employees and the environment from damage. Mentors help design automated systems with emergency shutdowns, which will automatically shut down if unsafe conditions are detected.
Industry control systems are prone to cyberattacks. Mentors guide through cybersecurity frameworks like NIST SP 800-82 to protect control systems from possible threats.
7. Develops Internal Talent for Long-Term Automation Success
Automation in industrial businesses is not just about implementing the technology rather creating an internal culture for continuous improvement. Mentors help to improve the skills of the workforce. This will reduce operational disruptions and help with long-term success.
Mentors provide training to the engineers and technicians on the automation tools. The workforce will gain knowledge of coding languages like Python and analytical techniques. With proper training, operators will know how to troubleshoot and maintain automated systems. Skilled internal teams are capable of handling system updates and maintenance. This will reduce the need for external support.
Mentors introduce a culture of continuous learning. They encourage the workforce towards innovation and keep them updated with technological growth.
Conclusion
Automation done without proper guidance can be costly and lead to wastage. With mentorship, industrial businesses gain the ability to build systems that suit their operational needs. Whether analyzing workflows or selecting the right tool, mentors help organizations to reduce risks and improve their automation processes. Mentorships as a whole add value to the automation processes.
