Category Archives: Network & Collaborating Effects

A case for change; thinking out the evolution of platforms and ecosystems

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What we offer today needs a change in emphasis of thinking out the evolution of platforms, into ones that are designed for building out thriving business ecosystems for all to collaborate around and build together.

I argue today, we need to change our stories into ecosystem thinking ones.

We need to shift our platform rhetoric into a vastly different one, one based on building the Ecosystem story, well defined in its understanding that requires a very intense focus on what it means within Industry design and expected outcomes.

Over the past three or more years, I have been studying and researching platforms and ecosystems. I feel we are at an inflexion point of significant business change from embracing ecosystem principles in the business world.

The key message from my reflection was, at the time, two years ago, “we do need to change our story; it is simply not about platforms“. It is thinking for the design for ecosystems, into “ecosystem mobilization.”

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Transformation Journey: Kiesslings Seven Point Plan to Prepare an Energy Company.

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Structure of Keynote for Energy System Change

In twenty-odd minutes, Thomas Kiessling outlined to an audience of knowledgeable Energy experts his seven points to help prepare an energy company to make a transforming change.

By using specific examples of the needs in Electricity and the Grid Edge to underline the changes needed to be undertaken, he “fleshed out” these seven steps by recognizing all the seven do need to be embraced collectively.

Thomas Kiessling is the CTO of Siemens Smart Infrastructure, and within his keynote at the Enlit Europe event, held in Milan between 30th November to 2nd December 2021, provided seven needs for transitional change to prepare any energy company “As all of us will go through disruption and opportunity.”.

The primary point of his keynote I covered in a more extensive review here of “how to prepare as an Energy Company for significant disruption.”

Kiessling said the industry “has entered a much greater degree of uncertainty. And uncertainty needs entrepreneurs; it needs trial and error, and it needs system-scale innovation.” Continue reading →

Ecosystems, technology and innovation; the keynote at Siemens SPS Event

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Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

This week, I enjoyed attending the Siemens SPS Event, taking technology, inspiration, and connecting innovation to a new level throughout the industrial world.Rainer Brehm’s Keynote

In the keynote of Rainer Brehm (@rainer_brehm ), the CEO of Factory Automation provided a clear understanding of what and why industrial technology is undergoing such a digital and automotive transformation and how Siemens (@siemens_industry) and their Digital Industry group was responding and offering clear leadership in this in solutions and customer support.

The SPS Event

The Siemens SPS virtual experience event focused on a digital enterprise portfolio seeking to offer technology inspiration. You can’t fail to learn of several new concepts or innovations within this portfolio provided.

You quickly recognize the powerful emergence of Ecosystems and new levels of connectivity and collaboration. These collaborations are both human and digital in form, running throughout all the sessions, over the three days, nicely weaved into the keynote to set the scene.

So much of our physical world is connecting into the digital world, and understanding the tasks of undergoing this digitalization journey has to reflect highly personal, individual concerns and choices as the starting points through assessing the collective wisdom and trends that are sweeping the world in the industrial revolution 4.0 to fit each business need.

In Rainer Brehm’s Keynote, he set the scene well.

As Rainer explains, the changes throughout the industrial sector are happening faster and faster. The critical enabler is the “usage of data.”

-Connectivity of combining a digital and real-world is proving for a more flexible and autonomous product. It enables the optimization of processes, introducing new opportunities through artificial intelligence (AI).

-Digitalization is advancing a more human-centric operation where the operator, the engineering and design benefit from adopting a digital twin approach.

-Today’s needs in manufacturing are to find a better sustainability pathway and grapple with a more transparent approach to understanding the carbon footprint of not just one part of the supply chain but to have a complete understanding.

-Customers and consumers demand this visibility and understanding of the actions being taken to offer products that are taking out carbonization and are genuinely sustaining.

-The final point in his opening remarks was that products and production needs to be resilient and highly flexible to adjust to changing demands and conditions and move towards these evolving and demanding market requirements

The growing issue Rainer rightly raised was how do we tackle these significant challenges? He continued in his keynote:

As Rainer explained, innovation cycles are getting shorter and shorter; new products are expected to be more customized than ever before, requiring a completely different manufacturing method to be initiated to accommodate this change.

Rainer sees the factory has to become even more automated and digital to adjust and adapt. To accomplish this evolution, the needs of software-enabled hardware and connectivity are becoming crucial. Today, to achieve a Digital Enterprise, one that acts fast, is intelligently adjusting to meet these ever-changing market requirements is needed.

As Rainer explained, connectivity is moving beyond simply the factory floor. Each product is today required to be designed in new ways using new technology approaches with the help of the digital twin and simulations.

Factory, production and product designs need to go beyond; solutions need to connect machines, process integrations, buildings, and warehouses along the supply change to optimize and understand the continuous data flow and improve.

Today, data needs to provide a feedback loop from production, supply, and design to produce today’s product and improve the next one. Improvements and insights in optimization, simulation for new designs and performances, and extend the machine and integrate the production line to achieve these unique and customized products in more efficient ways.

In his summing up on the Digital Enterprise, Rainer points out that digitalization and automation are the means of linking all processes from the real to the digital world in one continuous data flow that brings all stakeholders together. This increased cocreation environment includes designers, shop floor operators, engineers, analysts, and solution providers to close the feedback loop across the complete supply chain.

Rainer’s final observation came back to recognizing today one very relevant point: “sustainability will become the licence to operate.”

Siemens does do these events well to offer both broad but highly focused solutions to the needs of their customers.

Under the motto “Infinite opportunities from infinite data”, Siemens showcased solutions from its Digital Enterprise portfolio that enable companies to consistently digitalize, automate and make intensive use of the resulting data.

Four specific announcements within Rainer‘s keynote

Here in summarizing Rainer’s keynote, I  want to provide a short glimpse into four specific focal points that he announced from this keynote that support this digital and automating journey that needs different solutions or resolutions to be undertaken within the Industry.

My four exciting takeaways from the event announced by Rainer were:

Firstly, the continued integration of the Industrial IoT stack between OT & IT is where app development connects IT/ OT into the cloud, at the Edge, and finally onto the Shopfloor. This stack holds great promise for integrating the IIoT process. Siemens is taking a broad and integrated approach using Mendix and MindSphere in application and platform developments to provide customers with this robust IIoT solution.

Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

Secondly and perhaps the most exciting is the launch of SiGREEN. This solution provides and drives decarbonization throughout the extended supply chain by focusing on high levels of carbon qualification through the use of Blockchain to keep data secure and confidential but without any mining or crypto-currency aspects.

Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

SiGREEN is offering an open industry solution to identify the source of a product’s carbonization. The intent is to build an exact carbon footprint over the entire supply chain and offer transparency in identifying emission sources but with the confidentiality of those within the supply chain.

The solution provides a trustworthy aggregation of an overall Product Carbon Footprint across the supply chain without compromising the partners’ need for supply chain confidentiality.

Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

It aims to quantify emissions reliably, be trustworthy, transparent, secure and efficient, in its methodology and approach, that can evaluate and where necessary certify scopes 1,2 and 3 for the complete product carbonization understanding to then find solutions to decarbonising it.

This SiGREEN solution promises to be an inspiring initiative by Siemens to fully determine the carbon footprint of products they are involved in with their declared goal of being a significant contributor to achieving a carbon-neutral industry.

Within the SiGREEN solution, the distributed and open Estanium network makes it possible to combine emission data into an actual ecological footprint.

Thirdly, Rainer also announced the Siemens Industrial Edge Platform. This platform is extending the Industrial Edge concept of 2020 into a new Industrial Edge Marketplace, where partners together can have a platform to exchange and find collaborative value in providing greater solutions for industrial applications.

Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

Established partners will now benefit from a more open marketplace platform approach to expand their solutions in collaboration with a growing comprehensive network.

Providing an Edge Ecosystem adds a different, more robust new marketplace for developers who see the benefits of collaborating and co-creating to build applications relevant to specific IIoT needs. The platform to develop interfaces in an open development environment attracts a broader, more diverse community of providers and developments, buyers, developers, and sellers.

The new transaction mechanism promises a select, buy and use software environment from an open App store to move towards a seamless service and further access the industrial automation market through automating technology and providing the industrial software.

The new offering makes it possible for B2B customers to purchase and operate multiple software components on an all-in-one platform.

Finally, the fourth announcement from the keynote was on new solution offerings that are “creating infinite opportunities from infinite data“. The focus has been on building customer solutions that improve productivity, provide greater flexibility, connectivity and the use of 5G and drive simulations.

Visual from Siemens Digital Industries SPS Event November 2021

To find out more, then watch the keynote and all the other presenters over the three days.

The event provides so much value within the Industrial world where automation and digitalization are combining increasingly.

Register here: sie.ag/3b1jZJH, and you can watch the event for some weeks to fit your schedule. Do go and view this SPS event site:  sie.ag/3b1jZJH . When you enter the Siemens virtual trade fair experience, you discover all highlights in a virtual 3D showroom, auditorium event program, and you can certainly watch the event for some weeks to come to fit your schedule.

You have missed out on contacting an expert directly in the event but reaching out to Siemens through their sales channels or supporting websites is easy to begin any specific discussion on solutions that enable this digitalization and automation of your journey.

I got so much from these sessions, the head is swimming, but the brain is swirling! Thank you for what this SPS event provided, sessions that delivered such high levels of understanding from all those involved.

Siemens does do these events well to offer both broad but highly focused solutions to the needs of their customer Continue reading →

Unlocking growth and value creation through sustainability as the driver

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Sustainability is a Journey of Discovery

We increasingly recognize that the application of technology and the constant searching for new business models are opening up business into a sharing economy, where business recognizes all the different roles and contributions of governments, businesses, and society.

It is the realization that the growing power of collective action will address the complexities and larger-scale challenges we are facing today.

The recognition is growing that the environment, social and economic elements are far more intertwined and connected. Businesses are searching for greater links in their products, services, and operations to internally seek out an impact.

Business is becoming well aware that today’s consumer is looking that much harder for their solutions to be offering sustainability, alongside quality, availability, and ‘fair’ price.

Building trust, resiliency and a more integrated business model

There is a greater trust in relationships if a business addresses its environmental footprint and works to change its social impact in ways to protect our planet. Continue reading →

Human Ingenuity, Ecosystem Thinking, Embracing Innovation

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Today and in the future, we continue to take where we are in our technology and digital understanding and feed it more remarkable human ingenuity. Combining the collected knowledge found in a network of collaborators can dramatically advance the solutions sought by unlocking previously intractable problems.

We have entered the innovation era as we combine in ways not possible until recently. If we take any industry, any societal problem, as we tackle climate challenges, the power of connected innovation will make a difference and give us our breakthroughs.

We are still searching for the “how and what.” We need to push ourselves by opening up to the “where and why” in a network of connecting ways. We are recognizing sharing what we know accelerates understanding for all those involved.

Recognizing ecosystems are vital, combining human, technology, and data allows us to pursue multiple possibilities, explore them faster than before, evaluate them in quicker, more imaginative ways and scale those that show promise. Continue reading →

Ecosystems are really important, are we correctly applying them in Business?

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I have been reading the Ecosystem Restoration Playbook – a practical guide to healing the planet, developed for World Environment Day 2021 to kick off the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration (2021-2030)

I do like the explanation of Ecosystems, lifted from the restoration playbook (see below). There is some real contradiction to how business applies the ecosystem thinking, and this post attempts to look at the differences and implications of treating ecosystems differently. This use of “ecosystems” is degrading as much as we are in our Natural Systems, mostly in the eventual resource depletion and our insatiable consumption.

By taking this business thinking of Ecosystems into continually pushing for greater consumer consumption is a growing problem. We are at a time when we need to place a break on this, and take a different position of replenishing or restoring what we have, and reuse it. With our drive for continued growth consumption and exploitation, we are compounding our planet’s problems.

I wanted to explore some differences within Natural Ecosystems and how Business uses Ecosystems to search for growth, scale, and dominance. We are in need to change our consumption habits and business growth models.

This is not a definitive list. It is more to stop and reflect where we are heading on applying ecosystem thinking, perhaps addressing its accepted context or adapting it to fit its new one being push in the business world.

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Reshaping the core of your business through a focus on Sustainability

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If the decision is made to become more focused on “being sustainable”, drastic shifts in direction will undoubtedly occur.

The shift from that fear of being disrupted due to the digital transformation is being replaced by the need to build a sustainable company built on increasing insight and connected understanding, seeking and exploring, experimenting and confirming a new value equation.

A huge mental mindset needs to make leaps of faith and adjustments to this new order of focus.

That set of decisions will require a dedicated, focused, systematic need to assess the portfolio and the operating conditions. This goes way beyond the present “where to play and how to win”; this becomes as much for the long game as managing the short term.

The four focus points for Sustainability

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Orchestrating the New Ecosystem Business Design.

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There is a growing body of work about “orchestration” and its need in the business world. As we form a greater association with ecosystems as the business design, the orchestrator becomes central to its performance and success.

Orchestration has become synonymous with managing or dealing with (specifically) external partners. The need is to learn to cooperate to produce something different and original, usually in a platform and ecosystem arrangement.

I am continually reading about scale, modular structures, governance, the advantage of asset-light business models where the possibilities of speed and breadth of open innovation need to “kick in.” Orchestration can take on a lot, but we need to define the role a little more, in my opinion.

I often wonder if all this orchestration through ecosystem design does achieve that radical breakthrough or have become just another solution or coordinating mechanism and a convenient “tag” to attach to it to consider? Continue reading →

Getting Comfortable with Your Digital Twin- Origins, Purpose and Definitions

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Image from Siemens AG on their digital twin thinking, of a perpetual loop, constantly informing and improving.

I want to give a more dedicated focus on the digital twin that is becoming more dominating in our world. So I will explore these increasingly over different posts. This is the first to give a short history and explanation of digital twins before we look deeper into the role the digital twin is taking in industrial predictive applications and visualization and how this is evolving into being comprehensive in its design, allowing twins to be built on processes, products and production to relate, anticipate and simulate actual activities or physical needs.

So, where are we on understanding the value of having a digital twin? No, not yet one for ourselves but given time we will, we already have a digital twin of a heart. Continue reading →

Financing Decarbonization in Energy and Infrastructure

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Siemens Smart Infrastructure Grid Edge Summit

Siemens Smart Infrastructure offers many different solutions to achieving this change at the energy grid edge. Recently, to amplify this, they have been holding a conference over two days entitled “the grid edge summit“.

You can still register here as the event is available for some time to view and explore. It would help in understanding their solutions if you visited their different energy topic areas. Here Siemens offers you a significant range of choices, solutions and advice on Grid Edge topics to give you time to check out some of the #GridEdge tech & solutions.

These topics and solutions are organized under decarbonization and sustainability, distributed energy solutions, the integration of renewable energy resources, mobility charging, and the consulting and financing solutions available to utilize. The main conference event is a series of talks and panels exploring the topics above.

One panel I particularly enjoyed was “Financing Decarbonization.” Continue reading →