Communications empowerment drives change

In today’s engineering and plant management environment we are witnessing massive change in the way we do things and communication is at the very heart of these modifications.

The Internet was clearly instrumental in fostering these fundamental changes. It has spawned entirely new industries, transformed existing ones and has become a global cultural phenomenon. Specifically on the work front, the Internet added electronic mail (email), teleworking and video conferencing to the workplace. It made the ability to work from home or from a mobile desk a reality and offered engineers and plant managers greater flexibility and easier access to information and data.

The introduction of handheld portable communication devices such as the BlackBerry, iPhones, PC tablets and iPads have further altered the art of communication and the practices of engineering and plant management. These devices now play an important role in the working lives of engineers and plant staff. They allow instantaneous and seamless communication and commerce around the globe. Many of these devices have combined video, audio and on-screen drawing capabilities to enable multi-party conferencing in real-time, independent of location, as well as easy and quick access to data from virtually anywhere.

Engineers and plant management can now conduct conferences while on the run, access information and view designs instantly and confer with colleagues located around the world to reach agreement and make decisions. Clearly, smart communication technology has made the world a far smaller place.

Sophisticated communication technology has also allowed us to form, and harness, global work teams to create smarter plants. It has allowed us to bring together our engineering resources from around the world at a moment’s notice to brainstorm and develop new solutions.

The advent of social media has added a new dimension. We can now email questions regarding engineering and plant processing issues to the global engineering fraternity via networking sites such as LinkedIn and receive responses in seconds.

The ability to harness such expertise via today’s communications technology as well as the technical know-how to integrate such technology has allowed us to develop a raft of new products that have been embraced by industry. Revolutionary plant control enables remote monitoring and data analysis from de-centralised control centres or remote connections via the use of plant communication networks. High-speed ethernet networks deliver quick responses in plant monitoring and control, while bus networks can provide pinpoint analysis throughout the plant, and even SMS alarms for remote unmanned sites.

Such solutions have fully integrated the benefits of our communication world, ensuring response times are within seconds. But above all, modern communication technology has allowed us to harness resources to focus on plant design and operational issues, problems and especially, crisis.

While the communications phenomenon is remarkable and will keep us connected as we respond to the changing demands of industry, we should not forget that face-to-face communication and body language are still a vital part of the communication process. We are after all, by nature, social beings.