Effective use of time

One of my colleagues has ‘1440’ printed in huge numbers on the wall next to his desk. This is his reminder that there are only 1440 minutes in the day and that, to be successful, he aims to use every single minute deliberately. A moment is used effectively if it forwards his career, allows him to learn, improves his health or strengthens his relationships with friends and family. It is an attitude towards being mindful about tasks undertaken.

To run a successful operation, particularly with the suppressed commodities market, we should adopt this same attitude and ensure that every minute of our working week is used effectively. There are only 2100 minutes in a 40-hour week (less rest breaks) and each one should be used in the most effective manner. As my mentor once told me, “Work smarter, not harder”.

An effective task is one that improves the productivity, efficiency, reliability or safety of a plant, or improves your ability to work effectively, like training. The killers, for effective use of time, are tasks that are required to be done but should not be done manually.

A good operator would walk about the plant at the beginning of a shift and perform a quick visual inspection in a matter of minutes. This task improves safety awareness and is therefore an effective task. Unfortunately, operators commonly stop to read gauges, scrawl values onto pieces of paper and then transcribe them to spreadsheets later, which are all ineffective minutes.

Manually dipping a tank to verify that a SIL3 rated system is operating correctly is critical to continued safe operation of a tank farm. It is a task that takes about 60 minutes each day and requires permits to be raised and safety equipment to be prepared and tested. Given that it could be automated, manual dipping should now be considered a risk to personnel safety and an ineffective use of time.

Condition monitoring staff spend as much as 60% of their time — about 1260 minutes each week — collecting vibration spectra, and only 40% analysing and acting upon the data. Automated vibration monitoring can significantly reduce collection times and be used to identify problematic devices. It would also reduce the time spent reviewing spectra from healthy equipment, allowing key staff to spend more time on effective tasks and giving full and undivided attention to devices that need detailed analysis.

When I talk to people about productivity, I am looking for solutions that will help them remove ineffective minutes from their schedule and focus their efforts on productive tasks. It will always come down to accessing data they need but currently spend countless minutes collecting, because the cables and junction boxes are not available to install new instruments.

For each of the examples above, WirelessHART instruments have been used to replace gauges, perform level measurement and collect vibration data. In every case, it was just faster, easier and cheaper to install a wireless transmitter, rather than wired, to perform the rudimentary data collection task.

There are only 2100 minutes in each week. Each one of those minutes should be spent analysing and acting upon data, using our skills effectively. Reading a gauge is an ineffective use of time.

Craig Abbott has a BSc in CS and IT and has worked as a software engineer on projects for over 20 years. He enjoys using his IT background and extensive OT experience to help customers develop solutions to improve business metrics. Craig works as a Wireless Specialist at Emerson Process Management.